Taking On The World's Repressive Regimes: The Ford Foundation's International Human Rights Policies and Practices

Taking on the World’s Repressive Regimes
Taking on the World’s Repressive Regimes:

The Ford Foundation’s International
Human Rights Policies and Practices
William Korey
TAKING ON THE WORLD’S REPRESSIVE REGIMES
Copyright © William Korey, 2007.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-1-4039-6171-6
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DOI 10.1057/9780230608740
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Korey, William, 1922–

Taking on the world's repressive regimes : the Ford Foundation's
international human rights policies and practices / by William Korey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Human rights. 2. Ford Foundation—History. I. Title.

JC571.K597 2007
323.06'01—dc22
2006103204
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: August 2007
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Diana Marx, my loving and devoted companion.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
1 Origins and Background 1
2 Chile: A Breakthrough in Foundation Policy 25
3 Foundation Policy across Latin America 47
4 The “Human Rights Lobby” 69
5 U.S. Helsinki Watch: The Foundation in Eastern Europe 89
6 The “Foundation for European Intellectual Cooperation” 119
7 Taking Risks on South Africa 139
8 The Rejection of “Fatalism” 161
9 A Historic Role 185
10 Women’s Rights: “A Position of Empowerment” 209
11 From Nairobi to Beijing 229
12 A Stumble and Strides Forward 249
Notes 271
Bibliography 299
Index 307
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A half-dozen years since 2001 have gone into the preparation of this work,
which was preceded by, and, indeed, stimulated by my last human rights
volume, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was while
researching that work that I learned that the Ford Foundation was the
principal funder of almost all major human-rights nongovernmental org-
anizations.
In the early stage of the current study, I was greatly assisted by Catherine
Fitzpatrick, who was serving at the time as director of the International
League for Human Rights, having earlier been the research director of the
U.S. Helsinki Watch. At my request, she researched the files of the Ford
Foundation Archives on U.S. Helsinki Watch and Americas Watch and
provided me with a basic overview of their material. In addition, she accom-
panied me on several NGO interviews of Ford Foundation and nongovern-
mental officials.
An invaluable source of background information on human rights gener-
ally and women’s rights specifically was Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob
Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, on whose Advisory
Council I participated. She has served me well on the current study with con-
siderable advice and suggestions. The fact that she had worked for the Ford
Foundation on human-rights issues in the seventies and early eighties proved
most helpful.
Throughout my research in the valuable Ford Foundation Archives, I was
enormously assisted by Alan Divack, the former foundation archivist, and his
assistant, Anthony Maloney. Divack’s detailed knowledge of the archives can-
not be equaled and I am most grateful for the guidance he provided in expe-
diting my path through the archival files.
Within the Ford Foundation, too, extraordinarily helpful has been Larry
Cox, who served for ten years as the foundation’s principal human-rights
officer. He was unusually attentive in arranging interviews with high founda-
tion officials and he provided me with pertinent documentation.
In prior years, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation was always an insti-
tution from which I might seek modest funding for research projects. This
was especially the case when Bob Crane was its president. He is no longer
chief executive of that philanthropy, having moved to the Jeht Foundation.
Still, as a board member of the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, he remains
x Ac k n ow l e d g m e n ts
in a position to be helpful. And he has performed that function once again,

and I am most appreciative.
An especially warm and grateful “thank you” is extended herewith to the
gifted and talented typist of this manuscript, Suzanne Garnet, who managed
to juggle the reading of hieroglyphics with rearing a family, including two
lovely, if somewhat noisy, children. I am deeply indebted to her constancy.
Chapter 1
O r i g i n s a n d Bac kg r o u n d
I n the West, “Never Again” became the popular slogan, especially of the
young, once Hitlerism and the Nazi war machine were smashed. No one
wanted to experience or witness again the horrors of genocide that had
reached a climactic point in the third and fourth decades of the twentieth
century. Civilization could not tolerate the apparatus of hate, whether the
targets were racial, ethnic, or religious groups. Nor could it countenance
the machinery of discrimination that led to horrendous forms of barbarism.
To shut the door on the various forms of hate and bigotry and their excres-
cences was seen as the fundamental challenge to the international commu-
nity in the post-war world. The challenge found early expression in the
creation of the United National Charter, which was basically a treaty in which
human rights occupied a central place, along with the maintenance of peace
and the promotion of economic progress. Once ratified by the member-
states of the UN in 1945, the Charter prompted the drive for a Universal
Declaration of Human Rights of which Eleanor Roosevelt was the principal
architect. It was unanimously adopted on the historic day of December 10,
1948, encompassing thirty articles that embraced the gamut of the human
rights issues of the day.
The phrase “human rights” would soon be paired with “never again” to
express humankind’s aspiration for a new era. At first, it was only an aspira-
tion, as the phrase was rarely used in political discourse and in press
reportage. Rarely did the phrase appear in the major newspapers of the day.
Nor was much attention paid in the media to the special UN bodies dealing
with human rights—the UN Commission on Human Rights or its Sub-
Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
The years of the late 1940s through the 1960s hardly, if ever, saw the phrase
“human rights” take on life and meaning, whether in diplomatic discourse or
in the decision-making process of foreign policy.
Of course, certain nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like the
International League for Human Rights, the International Commission of
Jurists, and the American Jewish Committee, placed human rights at the cen-
ter of their policy concerns, but rarely, if ever, would they find an echo in
public attention. It was hardly surprising, then, that major standard works
2 Taking on the World's Repressive Regimes/William Korey
on international relations would not focus on the subject. The principal basic
volume on international affairs in academia well illuminates the silence
embracing the subject of human rights. Hans Morgenthau’s Politics among
Nations never mentioned the phrase, nor even referred to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in its first five editions, the last of which was
published in 1973.1 Not until the book’s sixth edition, published in 1985, after
Morgenthau’s death, was a section of several pages entitled, “Human Rights
and International Morality” added.2 But the new material, in keeping with
Morgenthau’s overall view, insisted upon “the impossibility of enforcing the
universal application of human rights.”3 At the same time, an examination
of the leading American journal on international relations, Foreign Affairs, s
found it to be devoid of academic articles on the subject of human rights.4
Not until the spring of 1967 did this key journal carry a single article on
human rights.
A new NGO, created in 1961, altered the broad international prospective.
Amnesty International, headquartered in London but with member branches
quickly sprouting everywhere, began to expose torture and other human
rights abuses in the hidden crevices of repressive regimes. Its well-researched
reports and documents, calling for the release of “prisoners of conscience,”
began to concentrate public attention on critical human rights issues.5
International recognition was shortly forthcoming. Amnesty International
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, a rare acknowledgment of the
work of a human rights international NGO. Earlier that same year, a new
U.S. administration in Washington, DC—the Carter administration—declared
human rights the centerpiece of its foreign policy. Still, the early seventies
would be distinguished less by the advancement of human rights than by its
repression. Much of the last quarter of the twentieth century would be char-
acterized by massive killings, including genocide, torture, disappearances,
and racism, along with ethnic and religious discrimination.
Three vast institutional structures emerged as the powerful expression of
general repression. The oldest and most elaborate political apparatus designed
for repression was the Soviet-dominated totalitarian power in Eastern Europe.
Stalin and his domestic and Eastern European colleagues imposed it, partic-
ularly during and after 1949. With Stalin’s death four years later, a “thaw”
crept through the frozen blocks of society, permitting a certain temporary
easing of harsh repression, but which resumed in its intensity during the late
sixties and early seventies.
Running parallel to the ruthless repression in Eastern Europe were stun-
ning new developments in Latin America where electoral democracies had
prevailed for a long time, even while economic impoverishment held many
in its grasp. To thwart social outbursts, the sixties saw the emergence of
harsh military rule in several Latin countries, a development that reached a
climactic point with the military seizure of power in democratic Chile in
September 1973. Authoritarian right-wing military rule would also embrace
other democratic societies in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. The elements
Origins and Background 3
of repression, so characteristic of totalitarian Eastern Europe, would now

embrace authoritarian regimes in which military dictatorships replaced
democratic rule. If anything, violence against human rights, whether through
extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances, or discrimination, reached
new heights.
Significant parts of two great continents now expressed the very antithesis
of human rights. The virulence of brutal repression would reach out to the
southern tip of a third continent, Africa, at the same time, during the mid-
1970s. South Africa may have still been characterized as a democracy in terms
of constitutional provisions for rights that could be exercised by its white
communities; however, those rights and privileges only applied to this numer-
ically thin slice of society and not to the far larger nonwhite communities of
blacks, Indians, and those of mixed race. If apartheid as the foundation
of society was organized much earlier, it was deepened and intensified in the
seventies. Thus, the South African state assumed an authoritarian character
with respect to the complete subordination of the nonwhite communities.
The overwhelming and overpowering challenges of the very antithesis of
human rights could not but undermine the fundamental themes and goals
of the post-war era. Human rights was hardly an aspiration any longer; rather,
the very opposite prevailed in broad segments of the globe and was spread-
ing. “Never Again” seemed to be only a formula to be dismissed and dis-
carded. Yet, in hardly fifteen years after the seventies, the hardened state
structures of repression would all be overthrown. By 1989–91, only a decade
before the twentieth century ended, to the relief of millions, totalitarianism
and authoritarianism had collapsed or, in the case of South Africa, was near
collapse. Here, free elections would quickly follow, extending in 1994 to the
country’s nonwhite communities. Thus, by the end of the century, freedom
would embrace the formerly repressive regimes of Eastern Europe, Latin
America, and South Africa. Still, it could not be said that human rights were
being fully implemented everywhere and, therefore, were in the ascendant.
Humankind would be confronted in the nineties with the horrors of geno-
cide in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, and in parts of Sudan, the latter
extending to Darfur in the twenty-first century. Nonetheless, the hope for
the expansion of human rights had been rekindled while the dominant insti-
tutions of repression during the latter part of the twentieth century lay
in the dust.
Significantly, it was the Ford Foundation, through a new program on
human rights adopted in 1975, that independently undertook the task of
confronting the three giant institutions of repression in the last quarter of the
twentieth century, and played an important role in helping destroy each of
them. Coincidentally, the demise of the three institutions occurred at approx-
imately the same time. The Chilean military dictatorship led by Augusto
Pinochet came to an end in 1990 with the election of a new government.
Several years earlier, in 1982–83, its companion military repressive regime in
Argentina had collapsed after a short war with Britain over the Falkland
Islands, and it was followed by democratic elections. The latter half of 1989
was distinguished in Eastern Europe by several democratic revolutions, most
notably in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and East
Germany. The former Soviet empire lay in ruins. Within the Soviet Union
itself, democratic stirrings would find increasing expression even as major
nationalities of the Union drove for independence. In December 1991, the
once powerful Soviet state itself disintegrated into a dozen separate nations.
Finally, South Africa’s most popular prisoner-activist, Nelson Mandela, was
released from life imprisonment in February 1991, and he was soon there-
after elected president of the African National Congress. Preparations for the
first free general election began almost immediately, leading to Mandela
becoming president in April 1994.
It is the remarkable role played by the Ford Foundation in helping bring
about the destruction of the powerful repressive military and political insti-
tutions that is the subject of the next eight chapters of this work. The bulk of
the foundation’s effort was not accomplished directly; rather, it was achieved,
indirectly although deliberately, through assistance to various nongovern-
mental organizations, both local and international. Precisely how and in what
way these tasks were undertaken is given detailed attention and is drawn
mainly from foundation archives and from other primary sources. The extraor-
dinary story of the Ford Foundation in action to realize human rights
objectives is an unusually dramatic one that has never before been told with
such detail.
This is very much an unlikely story. The Ford Foundation did not begin
with a human rights goal, and, indeed, did not sound human rights themes
for nearly forty years after its creation in 1936. Its beginning was quite
ordinary and prosaic. Its principal founders were Henry Ford, the ingenious
builder of the Ford Model-T and the great Ford Motor Company in
Dearborn, Michigan, together with his son, Edsel. But the primary motiva-
tion for the foundation’s establishment, as with many other family founda-
tions, was Henry Ford’s “concern for preserving the [Ford Motor]
Company intact.”6 By creating the foundation as a tax exempt organization
and bequeathing the nonvoting shares of the company to the foundation, the
family would not have to be burdened by huge taxes on the company’s prof-
its. Edsel appears to have had an additional motivation: to transfer more of
his wealth to philanthropic purposes. He had been frequently distressed to
learn how some of his friends or their heirs were forced to liquidate at
depressed prices so that they might raise required tax funds. The result was
often the divestiture of family control of the family’s business.
Clearly, moral considerations did not occupy the thinking of the founda-
tion’s creators. Nothing in the foundation’s origins echoed the following
famous comment by Andrew Carnegie: “The man who dies rich dies dis-
graced.”7 Nor were the conduct and belief of Henry Ford of more principled
motivations. That human rights did not interest Henry Ford in the slightest
was extraordinarily displayed in the publication by his personally-owned
Dearborn Independent of the most notorious of anti-Semitic publications,

the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had been forged by the Tsarist secret
police in the early twentieth century in Russia. Beginning in November
1920, the Dearborn Independent published excerpts from the Protocols high-
lighting a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world by the manipulation of
banks they allegedly controlled.8 The publication was intended for a mass
audience, with two hundred thousand to five hundred thousand copies pro-
duced for the next eighteen months. Ford was so enthused about the prod-
uct that he arranged for his Dearborn outlet to print a 250–page paperback
anthology of the anti-Semitic articles for a mere twenty-five cents per copy.
The anthology carried the title, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost
Problem. The booklet would become widely known in various circles of
American bigotry. Its title, The International Jew, captured the essence of the
hatemonger’s image of the dispersed Jewish outsider.
Especially striking, as Neil Baldwin, the researcher of the Henry Ford role
in promoting anti-Semitism, noted, was the impact that the automobile
maker had upon the Nazis as early as 1922 when Adolf Hitler was making his
first coup attempt in Munich, Germany. Baldwin’s research showed that
Hitler’s office in Munich in that year displayed numerous copies of a German
translation of the Ford book with a preface that lauded Ford for the anti-
Semitic service that he provided America. One year later, Hitler was reported
by Baldwin as saying that he “looked to Heinrich Ford as the leader of the
growing fascist movement in America.” Later, in 1938, Hitler, now as “Fuehrer”
of Greater Germany, personally bestowed upon Ford the highest award to a
foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle.9 It was given on Ford’s sev-
enty-fifth birthday. Relations with Hitler were symptomatic of but one aspect
of Ford’s pronounced bigotry. He also cultivated a relationship with a well-
known domestic anti-Semite, Gerald L. K. Smith, who moved to Detroit in
1937 and, according to Baldwin, was provided “with Ford’s subsidy at the
elegant Detroit Leland Hotel.”10 In addition, Ford extended him “financial
backing,” enabling Smith “to continue his widely heard radio speeches.”
Significantly, Ford’s relations with Smith took place only one year after he
had created the Ford Foundation.
It is important to note, observed Baldwin toward the end of his study, that
Ford’s family descendants later sought to make amends for Henry Ford’s
personal legacy of anti-Semitism. Beginning with his grandson Henry Ford
II, the family extended to Israel considerable economic credits and generously
supported Jewish charities at home and abroad.
Anti-Semitism was but one aspect of a perspective that would be consid-
ered antithetical to even a minimum standard of human rights. A second
indication was hostility to worker trade union rights policy. Trade unions
were held in total disdain by Henry Ford and he sought to ward them off with
the most virulent of means. His agent in this effort was Harry Bennett, who
would be identified as “chief troubleshooter” and who served as head of the
Ford Service Department, which functioned as the company’s strike-breaking
instrument. A major historian of the Ford Motor Company called Bennett’s

service unit “the largest private police force in the world.”11 At its peak, it
totaled some three thousand men. Charged with the responsibility of main-
taining maximum work discipline, the Bennett agents operated everywhere,
seeking to sniff out any hint of strike advocacy or union agitation. Any indi-
cation of such intent would lead to the summary firing of the worker. And it
made no difference whether such views were articulated on the work floor or
a distance away.12 In a word, the agents were often spies and strikebreakers.
Toughness was the mark of Bennett’s service employees. Many were hired
athletes with appropriate looks of roughneck fighters. They were dubbed
“plug-uglies.” Bennett’s network was not restricted to the Ford plant. All of
Dearborn was seen as its territory and indeed, all of the state of Michigan
were targets of the unit’s investigators, and their methods were hardly
polite. Beatings were rather pronounced even as they were in violation of the
Wagner Labor Act, enacted by the U.S. Congress to help legitimize trade
union activity. So powerful had Bennett become that a former high func-
tionary of the Ford Foundation, Waldemar Nielson, observed that by 1945,
“management [of the motor company] had fallen into the hands of a gang of
hired thugs under director Harry Bennett, long time head of Ford’s private
NKVD [Soviet secret police].”13
At the very beginning, the foundation’s income was extremely modest—a
twenty-five thousand dollar gift from Edsel in 1936. But by the end of the
year, cash donations by the family brought the total to almost two million
dollars. The potential of the foundation became evident with the drawing up
of the respective wills of Henry and Edsel in July 1936. The bulk of their
stock in the company was transferred to the foundation. Thus was safeguarded
in perpetuity family control over a vast industrial enterprise. The contribu-
tions to the foundation by Henry and Edsel would continue after its found-
ing. Before Henry Ford’s death in April 1947 at eighty-three years of age, he
had given it one and one-half million of his shares in nonvoting stock. With
the addition of Edsel’s gifts of stock—he had died in 1943—the founda-
tion, by 1950, held a total of over three million shares of the Ford Motor
Company’s stock.
Even with this potentially huge source of funding, the operation of the
foundation was, in the earliest years, extraordinarily modest. A historian of
the foundation found that “the first decade of its life was passed in virtual
obscurity.”14 Clearly, it was not intended to be the great philanthropy that it
later would become. No grand design was set forth when it was chartered in
January 1936 as a nonprofit Michigan corporation. It could hardly hold a
candle at that time to the Rockefeller or Carnegie Foundations, both of which
were widely known. If it engendered little publicity, it was because there was
little about which to boast. Indeed, during the first decade and a half of its
life, the foundation did not publish an annual report nor did it disclose much,
if anything, about either its income or spending.
In fact, the foundation, in its early years, was seen as, and to a large extent
was, a local operation. Headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, near the cen-
ter of the Ford automobile factory operations, the foundation provided sup-
port for philanthropies in and near Detroit or to projects that had been and
remained close to the Ford family’s concern. Ford’s grandson, who would
later run the company, noted that a key reason for creating the foundation
was “to provide a convenient means for carrying on the many obligations of
the Ford family in education, charity and scientific progress.”15 This consti-
tuted an aim that was a far cry from what the foundation would later con-
sider the object of its grants. Among the initial recipients were the Henry
Ford Hospital, the Diocese of Michigan, the Detroit YMCA, the Detroit
Institute of the Arts, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Detroit Com-
munity Fund. Certain health charities, like the National Foundation for
Infantile Paralysis, were also recipients. World War II prompted a series of
distinctly patriotic grants. Among them was the United China Relief, Army
Emergency Relief, the Navy Relief Society, and hospitality programs spon-
sored by the Knights of Columbus. To these were added several colleges,
mainly in the Detroit area, and a host of additional charitable organizations
beyond the area that were popular at the time, like Father Flanagan’s Boys
House and the Boys Clubs of America.
That the foundation’s focus was quite limited is evident. From 1936 to
1948, the foundation disbursed a total of about $15.5 million, about one
million dollars per year. The staff was a mere one-man operation—Burt J.
Craig; he had come from the Ford Motor Company. His office was in a small
suite of “a nondescript” office building in downtown Detroit, and a pair of
file drawers carried the records of the foundation. The three-member board
of trustees was composed of largely Ford family friends and associates. Not
until October 1946 was the board augmented by a prominent outsider—
Karl T. Compton, the eminent nuclear physicist who was president of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
A dramatic transformation would come about on December 31, 1950,
with the formal disbursements of the various Ford family estates. The foun-
dation’s assets, greatly enlarged by the increased value of the motor com-
pany’s stocks, suddenly became almost one half of a billion dollars. Far
outdistancing the assets of either the Rockefeller or Carnegie Foundations,
it had “quietly became one of the wealthiest institutions in the world.”16 It
was evident that the earlier limited horizon of foundation grants could hardly
be confined to narrow goals. That the foundation must assume a major
public responsibility would rather quickly dawn upon Henry Ford II, who
now occupied the chairmanship of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He
observed, “not until you work at it, do you find how hard it is to give money
away and give it away wisely.”17 Fortunately, with his “open mind” and rather
extensive schooling, he was not averse to having the foundation embrace a
greater social responsibility. He would declare in 1952 that “business itself
is learning its civic and social obligations and it can’t afford to neglect its
responsibility to the whole society.”
The foundation’s Board of Trustees was enlarged to include the dean of
Harvard’s Graduate School of Business Administration and the vice-president
of a leading Detroit department store. But it was Karl Compton who would
play the leading role in developing the new orientation. He recommended
that a study be conducted of what other foundations have done, as well as an
inquiry into what men need to live more fruitful lives. As important as focus-
ing on these questions was the selection of a new Board of Trustees leader
that would direct the survey. Compton had a single recommendation to
offer—H. Rowan Gaither, a San Francisco lawyer. It was an impressive choice
even if Gaither had not, as yet, acquired a significant public record. Only
thirty-nine years of age, he had already served, during the war years, as
assistant director of the MIT Radiation Laboratory in Cambridge, a responsi-
bility that enabled him to play a key role in the development of radar for the
armed services. He was also a member of the National Defense Research
Committee. With the conclusion of World War II, he returned to his
California law firm and would then become general counsel and chairman of
the Rand Corporation, the nonprofit organization significantly involved with
research for the Air Force in both the physical and social-science fields.
In early November 1948, Gaither traveled to Detroit to meet with Henry
Ford II and several other Ford associates. He was made aware that during the
next two years, the income of the foundation would increase to a staggering
sum as a result of the final legal settlement of the Ford estates. Far more sig-
nificant was the new posture that the trustees wanted the Foundation to
assume. It was to become a “truly great public trust.” The aim of assuming
great responsibility to serve the public vigorously could not fail to challenge
the youthful and enterprising Gaither. Of equal importance was the response
given to his question of what the future relationship between the Ford fam-
ily and the foundation would be. Serving at the same time both the family
and the public interest could create insoluble problems. Gaither was assured
that, in the near future, the Ford family would relinquish control or any
kind of influence upon the foundation. Gaither’s response to whether he
would take the position was an enthusiastic, “yes.” He agreed, as part of his
new job of running the foundation, to undertake an inquiry into what steps
and procedures were needed to achieve the objective of transforming the
foundation into a major institution.
Gaither indicated that he would quickly appoint a Study Committee com-
posed of experts in various fields of knowledge that would draft plans and
procedures to guide the foundation’s operations. At the same time, he com-
mitted himself to prepare a statement of purpose and policies that would be
designed to distinguish the foundation, providing it with a special and unique
character. That statement would be submitted to the Board of Trustees for
its approval. The survey was to be completed by July 1, 1949. Henry Ford II
set the frame of reference for the proposed study. According to Gaither, he
sought to learn how the foundation might best “use its resources . . . in the
interests of the public welfare.”18 The last phrase was crucial and would set
the tone for later foundation plans. Ford expected that the researchers of the
study would go to the general public and tap into its thinking on the subject
of “public welfare.” Presumably, the experts would focus upon urgent social
needs. As they would deal with human problems, Ford believed, their pri-
mary goal should be to seek out the causes or roots of problems rather than
their overt symptoms.
Gaither chose largely from academia: the former assistant dean of Harvard’s
School of Business Administration, the chairman of the University of Califor-
nia’s Political Science Department, the chairman of the University of Mich-
igan’s Department of Psychology, the president of the University of the
State of New York (who was also the state’s Commissioner of Education), a
top professor of medicine at Harvard, and a key professor of physics at the
California Institute of Technology. While they were to prepare and approve
the final study, a staff to service the academic consultants was appointed to
work at the Study Committee’s new location—the Drake Hotel in New York
City. Henry Ford II, on November 22, 1948, sent Gaither a letter that reflected
his emphasis with the following statement: “the Foundation was estab-
lished for the purpose of advancing the national welfare.”19 When the Study
Committee was formally announced in a press release on December 20,
1948, the phrase “national welfare” was changed to “human welfare.”20 In
wrestling with its mandate, the Study Committee made clear that it would
avoid “the preconceptions and habits of existing philanthropic agencies.”21
Its members were clearly determined to chart a new and different course
from similar institutions. At the same time, the committee was determined to
have studies concentrate on broad issues about “critical areas where prob-
lems were most serious and where the most significant contributions to
human welfare could be made.”
An analyst of the Study Committee report learned that Gaither and his
colleagues had traveled an extraordinary amount—250,000 miles—in order
to prepare their report.22 They interviewed no less than one thousand experts
and drafted an enormous quantity of mimeographed reports totaling 3400
pages. The final document, which was boiled down to 139 pages, was enti-
tled Report of the Study for the Ford Foundation on Policy and Program. It was
considered by the trustees to “represent the best thinking in the United
States.” Dwight Macdonald, a historian and critic of the foundation’s early
years, condescendingly referred to the study as “a work of awesome earnest-
ness, composed in the most stately foundationese,” a term he created to
mean “overwhelmingly self-evident” and drawn from “boring formulations.”
The following five program areas were set forth in the study: (1) the estab-
lishment of peace; (2) the strengthening of democracy; (3) the strength-
ening of the economy; (4) education in a democratic society; and (5)
individual behavior and human relations.
The first three categories would carry obvious ramifications for interna-
tional affairs with a certain possible implication for the much later human
rights area. But it was the following additional language in the fourth cate-
gory that would become a leading theme of the foundation’s international
program: “the discovery, support, and use of talent and leadership in all fields
and at all ages.” The formulation would have broad consequences for Ford
Foundation policy: elitism became a major guidepost of the foundation. In
the foundation’s new incarnation, it ceased to be—in the language of the
Study Committee—“a regional organization,” but rather was transformed
into “a national institution broadly dedicated to the advancement of human
welfare.”23 Rejected by the Study Committee was the “old role” of a foun-
dation that had made contributions to charities, hospitals, and public service
organizations.
Gaither’s Study Committee was unique in the history of philanthropy. No
philanthropic institution, including the Carnegie and Rockefeller founda-
tions, had ever undertaken a comparable survey for its objectives and aims.
The Ford Foundation saw its mission as the obtaining of “the best thinking
available concerning the problems of human welfare and what a foundation
might do about them.”24 The period during which the Study Committee
worked to shape the future of the Ford Foundation—1948–50—was described
by Henry Ford II as the “turning point” in the evolution of the founda-
tion.25 At the very same time, the foundation would emerge as the largest of
general purpose philanthropic institutions.
The Study Committee report was completed in 1949 but not released to
the public until the following year, at which time it was referred to as a “Magna
Carta.” The implication was clear: the report was seen as the touchstone for
advancing democracy, for overcoming poverty, and for promoting break-
throughs in benefiting human or public welfare.26 That last phrase was taken
seriously by intellectuals. Macdonald, who gave expression to it, avoided
making any snide comments that ordinarily would have been his wont.
If the Study Committee report reflected the foundation’s new emphasis
on democracy and humanistic idealism, at the same time, and in keeping with
the new outlook, the staff gave emphasis to shifting control of the founda-
tions from the Ford family itself, along with its motor company, to the foun-
dation’s own Board of Trustees. The staff recommendations went beyond
this point in urging that the majority of the trustees be unrelated to the Ford
family and have no formal or current connection with the motor company.
The formal severance would be realized in April 1950, when the articles of
incorporation were announced to specifically exclude the Ford family. And
that action was taken at the suggestion of Henry Ford II. As for the chair-
manship of the board, while Henry Ford II announced his intention to
resign as soon as a successor was found, the staff, in the public interest,
believed he should serve for an indefinite period. Still, family domination was
to come to an end. As Gaither later noted, with the amendment action, “the
trustees . . . passed control legally and irrevocably from the donor family.”
Exclusion of the Ford family control ineluctably meant the severance of the
localized program of charitable contributions.
The Ford Foundation, as noted in a “Report of the Trustees of the Ford
Foundation” on September 27, 1950, would steer a new course. Of the pro-
posed “five areas for action” spelled out in the report, three would become
the forerunners of its later international human rights programming. The
first crucial action area was support of activities that involved “significant
contributions to world peace and the establishment of a world order of law
and justice.” It was the last part of the sentence that would carry decisive
weight. A second action area focused upon programs “to secure greater alle-
giance to the basic principles of freedom and democracy.” The foundation’s
approach was framed in the context of an intensifying cold war in which the
Soviet Union was attempting to challenge the United States and democracy
itself. Where the foundation stood in the emerging titanic clash was now
made all too clear. Related to this action area was a third one that required
the foundation to assume an extensive international program. The formula-
tion of the third action area stipulated that the foundation would support
activities “designed to advance the economic well-being of people every-
where and to improve economic institutions for the better realization of
democratic goals.”
Self-evident was the need to reach out to Third World countries in Latin
America, Asia, and Africa. These nations were perceived as the potential
battlegrounds for control of raw materials and markets. The foundation saw
them as critical areas in the struggle between the Soviet Union and American
democracy, which reflected the intensifying conflicts in these Third World
areas. While the Study Committee report formally announced that the
foundation “cannot be partisan” and must engage in “non-partisanship,” it
would be enjoined “to play a unique and effective role in the . . . task of help-
ing to realize democracy’s goals.” Clearly, nonpartisanship in the struggle
against Soviet influence was not an option.
Almost immediately after the new program of activities was adopted, the
trustees began looking for a new president to replace Henry Ford II. This
was less difficult than might be anticipated; as emphasis had already been pro-
jected for an international program, someone highly experienced in interna-
tional affairs would be sought. Of course, top-level administrative experience
was essential. And if that international and administrative experience related
to, at least in an indirect way, advancing Western interests as opposed to
Soviet interests, all the better.
Paul Hoffman’s name would soon surface. He was the dynamic head of
the ECA—Economic Cooperation Administration—which was the official
U.S. agency for implementing the Marshall Plan in Western Europe. The busi-
ness-oriented Board of Trustees was quite naturally interested in Hoffman,
f as
he had been the head of the Studebaker Corporation prior to his administra-
tion of the critical Marshall Plan. Nor would he alienate liberals. Even though
he was a Republican, he had strong leanings toward civil liberties and civil
rights. Most important, in his job as ECA manager, he had been viewed as “a
super salesman of democracy.” In 1950, he was described as “an almost unique
combination of a hard-headed businessman and a practical idealist.”27
In October 1950, Hoffman indicated to Ford that he was “excited” about
the planned foundation program but wondered whether Ford and the trustees
“were prepared to take [public] criticism that will come if we proceed in a
bold manner.” It would turn out to be a key question that his colleagues did
not anticipate when some of Hoffman’s activities, or those of his appointees,
would raise a storm in various communities. What complicated the negotia-
tions with Hoffman was his insistence that the headquarters of the founda-
tion be moved from New York to Pasadena, California, his personal home.
The motivation for his insistence was the health condition of his wife. While
the trustees were unsympathetic to the proposal, their strong support for
Hoffman’s candidacy dissipated their opposition when they were faced
by Hoffman’s determined and fixed precondition. But while the headquar-
ters and principal leaders would be shifted, the administrative machinery,
including staff, would remain in New York. (A third national office, mainly
for fiscal purposes, would operate in Detroit.) Of critical importance was the
authority given to Hoffman to disburse funds.
As important as money disbursement was the authority given to Hoffman
to appoint his four top staffers, or associate directors. The principal figure
was Robert Maynard Hutchins, the “wunderkind” of the higher educational
world who had served as dean of Yale University’s law school and later as
president of the University of Chicago. Though very much appreciated by
Hoffman, who had been a trustee for some time at the University of Chicago,
Hutchins was seen as controversial, if admired, in the educational world and,
particularly, the social-political world, where he was held to be arrogant,
dogmatic, brash, and condescending. He viewed the 1950 Study Committee
report as providing a panorama and opportunity for an especially gifted per-
son, like himself, “to save the world.”28
With Hutchins’s special interest in education, two huge funds were cre-
ated by the foundation after an initial meeting in Pasadena of top officials on
January 4–5, 1951—the Fund for the Advancement of Education and the
Fund for Adult Education. Though considerable funding and special staffing
were required to operate these funds, which were largely devoted to the
United States, a separate fund was established in keeping with the founda-
tion’s special interest in world affairs and democracy. Created in the spring of
1951 as the East European Fund, originally entitled the Free Russia Fund, it
was openly oriented to responding to the Soviet Union’s ruthless repression
of freedom. Refugees and exiles from the Soviet Union and its satellites in
Eastern Europe would now be helped and sustained in an overt manner. The
Fund’s head would be George Kennan, a former top State Department
expert on the USSR and, later, the writer of an authoritative, if pseudony-
mous, article on Soviet affairs for the major journal, Foreign Affairs. The
Kennan-administered fund, unlike the other foundation funds, was located

in New York City.
Accompanying the new orientation of the Ford Foundation in 1950 and
what helped make it possible was the enormity of its income derived from
the Ford Motor Company’s stock. A later top official of the foundation,
Francis X. Sutton, would write that “the sheer size of this new foundation was
astounding.”29 In 1954, it spent more than four times as much money as the
Rockefeller Foundation and ten times as much as the Carnegie Foundation.
In 1951, it committed fifty-one million dollars in grants at a time when the
president of Notre Dame University announced that the university’s total
budget was $9.7 million. Or comparison could be made with the budget of
UNESCO that year, which totaled $7.2 million. In 1954, the foundation,
which had acquired $641 million in Ford Motor Company stock, promptly
allocated grants worth $548 million to American universities, colleges, and
hospitals. By 1960, the foundation’s capital grew to over three billion dol-
lars. The foundation’s annual budget was also larger than the combined core
budget of the entire United Nations and its specialized agencies.
Macdonald, one of the great social critics of his time and a talented word-
smith, captured how the foundation acted as a powerful magnet for intellec-
tuals. It was, he wrote, “a large body of money completely surrounded by
people who want some.”30 Hutchins, who was no slouch in concocting and
applying appropriate descriptive language, christened the foundation estate
in Pasadena “Itching Palms.” Macdonald’s and Hutchins’s descriptions were
hardly understatements. Requests and applications for grants poured in from
all over the world. In Pasadena, the foundation received weekly between two
hundred and five hundred grant requests, and during some weeks, the total
reached one thousand. During the first two years, an estimate placed the
number of requests in the tens of thousands. By 1951, the amount of grant
funds requested reached seven billion dollars.
The fact that Macdonald was widely known as a leftist on political issues
when he was selected by The New Yorker to write special articles on the
Foundation could not have failed to arouse considerable anxiety among
the foundation’s trustees and some of its staff. Gaither, for example, wrote to
a friend expressing fears that the writer would “trap him into an interview.”31
The Ford Foundation’s public relations director, Porter McKeever, later
recalled that he had wondered aloud, “Is there any way to avoid it?” (i.e.,
planned interviews).32 A more mature judgment soon overcame McKeever’s
fears, and he helped Macdonald in every way possible with interviews and
information. However, when Macdonald’s three articles came out in book
form, McKeever recalled, “there were screams all over the place.” And, indeed,
Gaither never forgave McKeever for cooperating with Macdonald. Still, the
book was praised in the authoritative Saturday Review of Literature as being
“the sort of clean, original, analytic work” that “U.S. scholarship needs.”
Even more significant was an unusual laudatory introduction for a reissue
of the Macdonald book in 1989 written by a long-time Ford Foundation
official, Francis X. Sutton, who became a vice-president of the organization.

He praised the book for its “liveliness, independence and fair-mindedness.”
What everyone who was connected with the foundation or who wrote
about it recognized was that the foundation’s reputation rested upon the
quality of its grants. Hoffman and his associate directors were determined to
avoid treating the requests in an especially sparing manner, even if, to the
outsider, the allocations appeared grandiose.33 The trustees early on estab-
lished a policy of spending income without touching the principal. By virtue
of a selection process built around twenty-three major projects that had been
woven into the fabric of the foundation’s general purpose, the number of
major grants was highly restricted. A total of 183 projects were supported
during its first five years.34
It was widely known in political circles that what made the foundation
extravagantly rich in the early fifties was the enormous income brought in by
the Ford Motor Company that would afterward be cut off as a source. The
year 1950 was a peak time for the automotive industry and the foundation’s
income soared to over sixty-eight million dollars. At the same time, the value
of the foundation’s net assets would annually increase by two percent. Thus,
while its disbursement rate seemed huge—thirty million dollars in 1951,
which stunningly equaled the total disbursement rate of the next five largest
foundations—it constituted a pittance of the total Ford Foundation income
that year.
Of striking significance was the heavy emphasis placed upon the founda-
tion’s overseas assistance to developing countries. The overt frame of refer-
ence for the development program was the promotion of peace. Projects
would be supported that were supposed to reduce social and political con-
flicts in developing areas. In addition, they were designed to raise the stan-
dard of living for people in the local communities. But a less than overt
motivation was also apparent. In a speech in New York in 1951, Hoffman,f as
the former Marshall Plan administrator, made it clear that those seeking
world peace would have to recognize “the hard and relentless determination
of the Soviet overlords to create tensions.”35 He went on to add that the
Kremlin oriented itself to promoting subversion by “intensifying and multi-
plying tensions.” Nonetheless, Hoffman was realistic enough to recognize
that the Soviet Union was not the only source of tensions. The post–World
War II era had been breached in developing countries by a surge of national-
ism, reflecting what Hoffman termed, “the determination of the common
man everywhere to better himself.”
An initial authorization of five million dollars was made by the foundation
trustees for the overseas program. Hoffman made it clear that the founda-
tion would provide assistance only in those countries to which they were
invited. And that development assistance would include irrigation, agricul-
tural advice and demonstration, encouragement of agricultural credit institu-
tions and cooperatives, improvement off local industries, vocational education,
health care and sanitation, and nutrition and child care. These development
projects would become standard for the foundation operations in Third

World countries. Dwight Macdonald was especially impressed by Hoffman’s
international programs, particularly those geared to economic development.
He called the Ford Foundation “the most globally conscious of the large
foundations.” Of particular importance, he emphasized, was the foundation’s
fundamental objective of being “problem-oriented.” In that capacity, it was
able “to win allies and influence neutrals.” Its objective was not “research per
se,” but rather, through concrete programs, to achieve “sympathy and under-
standing between us and the rest of the non-Communist world.”36
Among the several other international programs Macdonald strongly wel-
comed was the foundation’s financing of refugee work, including the three
million dollars granted to all fifteen private agencies working through the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the four million dollars allocated
for the East European Fund to help the one hundred thousand exiles from
East Europe. A companion program that he lauded was the “furthering [of]
the exchange of ideas and persons between America and the rest of the
world.” Specifically endorsed were the programs to encourage and finance
“the study of foreign nations by American scholars.” For all of his jaundiced
views of American capitalism and the antisocialist education it spawned,
Macdonald still warmly greeted the Ford Foundation. Among developing
countries, Hoffman’s attention was first drawn to India. A visit by him to
New Delhi was followed by meetings with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
and his top aides, and separate discussions with members of the India
Planning Commission. Hoffman was convinced after the trip that “Asia can
and will be saved from Communism.”37 Appropriations of $6.5 million were
made by the foundation in 1951 for projects in India, Pakistan, and the
Middle East.
A second priority of the foundation under Hoffman, a project in which
Robert Hutchins was heavily involved, was the Free University of Berlin.
Linked together here were two basic foundation interests—education and
the struggle against communism. The Free University constituted a bastion
in the defense of academic freedom by students and faculty as they faced
great pressure from Soviet authorities. Indeed, it came into existence when
the University of Berlin, located in the Soviet sector of Berlin, was reopened
after the war. Confronted by the arbitrary introduction of Marxist-Leninist
dogma, many of the faculty and students fled to West Berlin to start their
own university. After the Free University was formed in 1948, the founda-
tion granted it $1.3 million in 1951. Later, the foundation would provide
additional funds to the university, which would become a major symbol of
freedom in an area of critical importance to the West during the cold war.
Other initiatives in promoting freedom were also undertaken by the
foundation in West Germany. But none was more important than sustain-
ing life for the one-quarter million displaced persons still living in camps in
West Germany. Their numbers were augmented by a continuous flow of
refugees from Eastern Europe. Responsibility for the welfare of this mass
of humanity—with food, shelter, and clothing—fell on the UN High

Commissioner for Refugees. The foundation had already made a grant of
nearly three million dollars in 1952 to assist the displaced persons and
refugees. The new grant would become a significant contribution to be
used by the High Commissioner’s Office. The warm relationship between
the foundation
f and the UN agency would continue for many years. For the
refugees, the grants proved to be of considerable significance in their
resettlement into new communities. Hoffman had recognized that the task
must be undertaken “to help repair the intellectual and moral damage that
has been inflicted on many millions of freedom-loving people.” The founda-
tion’s funding efforts during these golden years of 1951–53 were impres-
sive.38 It was the judgment of the Ford Foundation’s historian, William
Greenleaf, that “no other major foundation” could equal this extraordi-
nary achievement. Equally important, of course, was the work of the East
European Fund, which included a significant contribution aimed to help
the placement of one hundred thousand refugees from the Soviet-dominated
area of Eastern Europe.
What was also held to be of considerable value was the Chekhov Publishing
House, to which the foundation extended funding. Its publications of books
and studies in a variety of different areas, beginning in September 1951,
offered a major channel to the refugee community’s intellectual welfare. The
publications also provided enlightenment to Americans, whether researchers,
scholars, or ordinary persons, who sought information and documentation
about the Soviet Union. The unusual publishing house also arranged for
translations of prominent literary works. Its total income from grants was
approximately one million dollars by the time it ceased functioning in
September 1956. The director of the publishing house, Nicholas Wreden—a
former refugee who also served in key editorial positions at E. P. Dutton
and Little, Brown and Company—was much impressed by what the Ford
Foundation had accomplished. He lauded the foundation as providing a
“major event in the cultural history of the Russian immigration.”39
Fighting communism in the cultural field, as well as the Soviet influence
in the political realm, was a principal concern of the foundation. Grants in
humanities and the arts were frequently designed to help sustain this ideo-
logical and intellectual struggle. According to Kathleen McCarthy, a special-
ist in the cultural struggle, approximately ten million dollars was expended
by the foundation in cultural grants during 1950–80.40 If this sum was rather
modest compared to the two hundred million dollars expended on economic
development projects, it was nonetheless significant. The publication of stud-
ies was designed to “dispel misconceptions” about the West held in Third
World countries, as noted by Hutchins, or for “waging peace on the interna-
tional front,” as it was perceived by Hoffman. Especially impressive was the
impact of the publishing initiative in India, where the foundation launched
the International Productions Program to publish top-level Western authors.41
Books were not the only weapon the foundation sought to promote in India;
it also attempted to halt the loss or destruction of irreplaceable cultural mate-

rials and to enhance the national cultural content of museums and the per-
forming arts in order to increase tourism and strengthen national pride.42
In the ideological and political struggle against communism, the principal
instrument of the foundation would become the Congress for Cultural
Freedom, even if the foundation initially gave it no support, and several years
later a modest degree of support. Founded in June 1950 at a public rally in
the British section of West Berlin, it was composed of intellectuals from
throughout the Western world. Climaxing the rally was the proclamation of
a “Freedom Manifesto.”43 The foundation was approached the following
year by Sidney Hook, a leader of the Congress and one of the West’s leading
intellectuals, who asked Robert Hutchins, the head of the foundation’s Fund
for the Republic, for a grant of one million dollars. He was “curtly refused.”44
The style of the Congress was hardly that of Hutchins.
But by 1953, the foundation was sufficiently impressed by the Congress’s
publications, especially Der Monat, t that it provided the funding for the lat-
ter. Initially, the magazine, which Sidney Hook called “the best cultural
magazine in the entire world,” was published by the information services of
the Allied High Commissioner for Germany.45 With foundation’s funds, it
could then be published independently in a more neutral area of Berlin. In
October 1954, the title Der Monat was more appropriately changed to An
International Magazine. The Congress for Cultural Freedom also published
a number of major political publications, the most prominent of which
was Encounter.
In addition to political literacy publications, the Congress initiated in
1955 the holding of seminars in various Western European sites that were
attended by leading intellectuals. The foundation agreed to fund the pro-
grams of several of them. One of the leading foundation officials, George
Kennan, who headed its East European Fund, wrote enthusiastically to a top
Congress leader in 1955, noting that “few will ever understand the dimen-
sions and significance of your accomplishment.”
The huge, multimillion-dollar operation of the Congress for Cultural
Freedom was struck a devastating blow when The New York Times, s after a
lengthy investigation in April 1966, published an exposé stating that the Con-
gress was largely funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Confirmation
came the following year, in May 1967, when a high CIA official, Tom
Braden, wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post that exposed in rather
brazen fashion how the CIA planned and organized the Congress operation.
That the exposure would sow utter chaos in the world of the Western
European and American intelligentsia was self-evident. Suspicions and hostil-
ity toward the Untied States had already been growing as a consequence of
the Vietnam War.
The collapse of the Congress for Cultural Freedom appeared imminent.
After a quick investigation of the Congress, the chairman of the govern-
ment’s General Advisory Committee on U.S. Foreign Assistance Programs
and who was also the president of Cornell University, James A. Perkins,
wrote to the new Ford Foundation president, McGeorge Bundy, recom-
mending that the foundation take over the funding of the Congress. His let-
ter emphasized that the Congress “still would seem to be an important
organization led by absolutely first class people and directed at a matter of
vital importance for the future of the free world.”46 Perkins suggested that
the foundation provide one million dollars for the Congress’s annual budget.
The foundation, after considerable internal debate and soul-searching, agreed
to provide a grant of nearly five million dollars for a five-year period.
Dissipation of support from important segments of the European intelli-
gentsia in addition to the continuous soul-searching at the foundation led
to the decision to bury the Congress and replace it with a new leadership
name and structure. The name of the organization was changed to the
International Association for Cultural Freedom, and it was to be headed
by Shepard Stone, who until then headed the foundation’s International
Division.47 The organization remained totally dependent upon the founda-
tion. But the changes were to no avail: the decline accelerated and the foun-
dation would shortly end its existence.
But, if the Ford Foundation was vigorously involved in combating the
influence of international communism and its most obvious agent in the global
community—the Soviet Union—it found itself, during the early fifties, a tar-
get of militant anticommunist forces. McCarthyism had become a major
force in the United States, especially after communist North Korea, prompted
by the Kremlin, had invaded South Korea. Rightist forces saw communism as
a genuine and immediate threat to the United States. Suddenly, suspicions of
the most primitive kind were articulated by prominent right-wing newspaper
columnists warning that what may appear as innocent conduct only shielded
espionage or dangerous subversion plans directed against American society.
The atmosphere of the seventeenth-century charges of witchcraft in New
England, as the playwright Arthur Miller would later elaborate upon in The
Crucible, engulfed America. Intellectuals, some of whom held Marxist sympa-
y
thies, and even others much less enthusiastic about Marxism found them-
selves to be suspected by cold war advocates of not being fully committed to
American values. A wholesale assault on liberalism had taken hold with the
House Un-American Activities Committee and the investigatory tactics of
Senator Joseph McCarthy, guiding legislative bodies as well as public opin-
ion. Liberal-oriented foundations found themselves on the defensive.
The Ford Foundation became an easy target even though its international
program on aiding developing countries was fundamentally designed to pre-
vent or halt Soviet influence from taking root. If nothing else, the founda-
tion’s program moved in lockstep with administration efforts, under Presidents
Truman and Eisenhower, to oppose communism. And the foundation’s pro-
gram of assisting refugees, especially refugees from Eastern Europe, was
aimed at exposing the ruthlessness of totalitarian behavior and its pulverizing
assault upon freedom and individual initiative. Nonetheless, conservative and
isolationist hostile suspicion of all aid programs grew along with negative
views of all programs by the United States that carried an “international
thrust.” Support of refugee programs was perceived in the same way, with
the very image of the refugee generating an immediate hostility, even if most
Americans, at one time or another, sprung from some foreign stock.
The initial thrust against these foundations was made in the autumn of
1951, when the House Rules Committee approved a resolution prepared by
Congressman E. Eugene Cox (a Democrat from Georgia) that called for a
“full and complete” investigation of philanthropic foundations “in order to
determine which such foundations . . . are using their resources for un-
American and subversive activities not in the interest or tradition of the
United States.”48 Not surprisingly, Robert Hutchins, head of the founda-
tion’s Fund for the Republic, was regarded with special suspicions, as his lib-
eral record at the University of Chicago and on social matters was generally
perceived as lenient or “soft” on communism. Even if he replied sharply and
clearly in committee hearings to hostile questions and with a ringing con-
demnation of totalitarianism, the right-wing establishment refused to be sat-
isfied. What complicated the picture was that the foundation acknowledged
that it had made mistakes in providing grants to a few individuals who
could be perceived as radical. Other foundations also acknowledged mak-
ing similar errors.
During the final week of the hearings before the Cox Committee, Ford
Foundation President Hoffman was called as a witness. His frank response to
questions on communism impressed Cox himself. “You preach a fine doc-
trine,” he said, “and it is something which ought to be carried to the fire-
side and home of people.” Later, he told Hoffman, “you have made a very
fine case for the Ford Foundation. As a matter of fact, you have made a fine
case for all the foundations.”49 The final report of the Cox Committee,
released on January 2, 1953, hardly conformed with the initial fears prompted
by Cox’s early accusations against foundations. Indeed, the Committee was
largely laudatory. Still, Hoffman, with Henry Ford II’s encouragement, would
resign. He had become so heavily involved with Dwight Eisenhower’s cam-
paign for U.S. president and later with the inauguration that his foundation
tasks and responsibilities were dropped. Besides, the staff and the trustee
leadership found Pasadena an inadequate site for administering a great foun-
dation. Rowan Gaither took over as president.
Despite the laudatory comments of Congressman Cox, the McCarthyite
intimidation of the Ford Foundation had not yet ended. B. Carroll Reece, a
powerful Republican Congressman from Tennessee who chaired the pri-
mary campaign of isolationist Robert Taft for president against Eisenhower,
refused to accept the findings of the Cox Committee, of which he was a
member. With a favorable house vote, Reece organized new congressional
hearings in March 1954 to determine whether “foundations and organiza-
tions are using their resources for . . . un-American and subversive activi-
ties.” By then the witch-hunt atmosphere in Washington had diminished
and the Reece Committee itself became a target of national amusement by

the media.50
The critic Dwight Macdonald both recognized the phenomenon of intim-
idation and could anticipate its future course. He put it rather sharply as fol-
lows: “large foundations like large corporations, are timid hearts, and when
they are frightened by some small but vocal minority they envelop themselves
in a cloud of public relations.”51 Macdonald could not fail to note that, as
compared with the Hoffman years when the foundation was oriented to a
“readiness to experiment” with large sums, the organization under Gaither
“has become more cautious, and that in a few years it may become indistin-
guishable” from other foundations.52
Still, by the mid-fifties, the foundation had withstood the slings and arrows
of an outrageous ultra-rightist assault and—except for the removal of the
Fund for the Republic and the other funds that had been, in any case, chal-
lenged by internal questioning—survived and appeared even stronger. It was
an appropriate moment when Henry Ford II, who had long ago promised
to give up his chairmanship of the Board of Trustees, could formally resign.
He did this on April 18, 1956. Several weeks later, on May 8, Gaither was
solicited to become a chairman of the board at a time when he was already
serving as president of the foundation. What remained unfinished, however,
was the selection of a new president, as the Gaither appointment to that posi-
tion had been temporary to fill in for the hard-charging Hoffman. For two
months, the Board of Trustees deliberated on the selection. Two qualifica-
tions were very much in the forefront of their thinking: that the new presi-
dent ought to come from the field of education in keeping with the popular
conception of the foundation as performing an education function, and
that he ought to have considerable administrative experience. The choice fell
upon Henry T. Heald, who had served as president of the well-known,
technically-oriented Armour Institute (which in 1940 became the Illinois
Institute of Technology) and later, in 1951, as chancellor and president of
New York University. Heald assumed the post on October 1, 1956.
Careful examination of the Annual Reports of the Ford Foundation indi-
cates that not a single grant was awarded for “human rights” from its very
beginning until 1974. And the phrase did not appear even once in the
“Presidential Review” statements that appeared in these reports. Of course,
assistance to refugees was a constant feature of foundation grant-making, and
refugee assistance might be perceived as a “human rights” issue. Generally,
however, the refugee problem was and is seen as a humanitarian issue, not a
human rights one.
Equally startling was a relative indifference to providing any grants with
respect to the implementation of the first and most important human rights
treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide. It was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on
December 9, 1948, one day before the vote on the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Of course, it was the genocidal practices of the Nazis against
Jews, Gypsies, and a host of national groups in Europe that were integral to
Hitler’s purposes and that made genocide a central element of World War II.
And it was precisely this horrendous core purpose that provoked the post-
war cry of “Never Again.”
Strikingly, the Ford Foundation Archives offer the most vivid example of
a request for a grant on the subject of human rights by a prominent scholar
and activist, and its rejection by the foundation. Raphael Lemkin, the inven-
tor of the term “genocide,” had written a major book on the subject in 1944
and then played a decisive role in chaperoning the genocide treaty through
the UN General Assembly. He wrote to the foundation on December 1,
1957, seeking funding on a major project related to genocide.53 The letter
is revealing in describing his personal background, as if it needed to be given
in view of the media publicity surrounding the UN debate on the subject in
1948. The beginning of the letter read, “I am sure you know of the fact that
I have coined the word ‘genocide,’ have developed the concept, have person-
ally negotiated the ratification of this treaty with almost all the fifty-one rati-
fying powers.” Lemkin then went on to say that he had been “collecting
material cases on genocide” and that for the last ten years, he had been
“writing its history in antiquity, middle ages, and the modern times.” After
spelling out his major thesis that “the main reason of genocide is conflict of
cultures,” he emphasized that to finish his planned three-volume work on
genocide, he needed “financial help to complete the research [and] put the
manuscript in final shape.” The letter, along with his extraordinarily impres-
sive curriculum vitae and a list of his major publications, was addressed to
Don Price, a high foundation official.
Two days later, on December 5, 1957, Price wrote back, acknowledging
that he had “heard for a number of years of [Lemkin’s] impressive contribu-
tion in the field of genocide.”54 Price’s letter went on to say that the Ford
Foundation’s “general policy” was “not to make grants to individuals for the
preparation or completion of particular books.” The letter carried a certain
abruptness and arbitrariness. Within a decade, genocide would make its appear-
ance in Burundi and Nigeria, and soon thereafter in Cambodia. Still later, it
would find expression in Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda. Significantly, the foun-
dation became sufficiently interested in the subject in 1981 so as to provide
a grant to Leo Kuper, a professor of anthropology at the University of
California, to write a book that was designed to update the work of Lemkin’s
Genocide Convention. Kuper was given over twenty thousand dollars for a
two-year period in order to complete a study on “International Protection
Against Genocide: Implementation of the Genocide Convention.”55 Lemkin
himself was to die of a heart attack eighteen months after he made the request
for assistance from the Ford Foundation.
Finally, after a quarter century of neglect, “Human Rights,” along with
“Intellectual Freedom,” was identified for the first time as a distinctive cate-
gory in the 1974 Annual Report. Only three grants within this category
received funding in 1974, for a total of $712,000. The single NGO that
was identified within the category as receiving funding was the Minority
Rights Group. Not only was no reference made to human rights in foundation
literature or commentary, but no mention was also ever made of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Nor was there any reference to the UN
Commission on Human Rights. Excluded, too, from foundation discourse
were references to the human rights conventions of the Western European
community and of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The first time the foundation formally acquired a scholarly document on
human rights was not until September 1973. It was prepared by the distin-
guished British scholar and academic lecturer on human rights, Rosalyn
Higgins. The twenty-page document was entitled Human Rights: Needs
and Priorities. The cover page indicated that it was prepared for the Ford
Foundation’s European and International Affairs office.56 A preliminary
remark by Professor Higgins indicated that the foundation had been “faced
with ad hoc applications for support for research and teaching projects in the
field of human rights.”57 Its response, according to Higgins, was to look
“sympathetically” on human rights research projects dealing with “armed
conflicts.” But overall, the foundation was to approach “with caution” con-
cerning all other applications dealing with human rights, “until internal deci-
sions could be reached” on how the foundation ought to respond.
In view of the requests by grant applicants, a formal “request” was made
of Higgins to summarize “the state of human rights work and the [possibil-
ity of] future extent and nature of any Ford support in the area of human
rights.”58 Higgins must have surmised that the foundation had little experi-
ence and familiarity with the field. She began by observing that the human
rights field is “gigantic” and “grows every year.” Moreover, the amount of
research already done, she advised, was “prodigious.” After a kind of list-
ing of basic documents and information regarding the human rights field,
Higgins contended that what ought to be concentrated upon was not
research in the human rights field, but rather the “implementation” of the
human rights agreements or treaties that had been adopted or were soon to
be adopted.59
If “implementation” was a priority item in the Higgins report, no effort
was made to spell out how the foundation might play a role in advancing this
objective. The only special task she would recommend was the promotion of
human rights. With particular emphasis, she wrote, “I emerge from the
preparation of this study with the strong conviction that one area above all
others deserves urgent priority for the Ford Foundation and that is . . . the
dissemination of human rights.”60 Significantly, absolutely nothing was done
about the Higgins study. It was never referred to in any of the intensive
debates on human rights that took place at the foundation during 1974–75.
If it was even read by anyone at the foundation is not clear. Like a stone
thrown into a stormy lake, no ripples could be seen.
But the years 1974–75 did produce stormy debates in the foundation that
were sparked by the dramatic military coup in Chile in September 1973. For
the first time since its founding in 1936 and since it assumed “human wel-
fare” responsibilities a quarter of a century earlier, the foundation became
seized with human rights purposes and aims. The next three chapters will
focus upon how the foundation made the violation of human rights in Latin
America a primary concern, replacing economic development as its principal
topic of interest and leading to the defeat of the right-wing authoritarianism
of major military regimes in Latin America.
Two subsequent chapters will trace the role played by the Ford Foundation
in confronting the totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe during approxi-
mately the same time-frame—1975–90. The focus will be largely upon lever-
age provided by the Helsinki Final Act of August 1, 1975. One of these
chapters will disclose for the first time details of a little-known foundation
project involving a generally hidden from public view nongovernmental organ-
ization. As with the collapse of the military regimes in Chile, which had
prompted the new human rights initiative of the foundation, the principal
communist regimes of Eastern Europe in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary
were overthrown by democratic revolutions in which the foundation played
a not-so-insignificant role.
The apartheid authoritarian regime of South Africa is the subject of the
next three chapters. To be examined here is the extraordinary multiplicity of
tasks undertaken by the foundation in helping to bring about the disintegra-
tion of the apartheid regime without recourse to civil war. Special attention
will be paid to two major functioning nongovernmental instruments of
the foundation—the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights under Law and its
Southern Africa Project. How these groups functioned in bringing about
an end to the authoritarian regime has never been closely examined and
publicly aired.
Stunningly, even as the foundation was nurturing initiatives that would
bring down three of the most repressive global regimes, it was also engaged
in a major revolutionary initiative in advancing women’s rights. The climac-
tic point in these efforts came at the UN-sponsored Beijing World Conference
on Women in March 1995. This occurred only one year after the first demo-
cratic regime came to power in South Africa and but a few years after democ-
racies became dominant in Latin America and Eastern Europe. The final
chapter of this book is devoted to the actions of the Ford Foundation during
the early years of the twenty-first century. The first was a planned UN con-
ference on racism, which turned into an embarrassment for the foundation
on the issue of anti-Semitism. An initial stumble led to impressive rectifica-
tion initiatives. The second part of the chapter illuminates the foundation’s
continuing search for major breakthroughs in the human rights field, most
notably in the field of “transitional justice” following the collapse of arbitrary
rule in military dictatorships.
In researching the account of the foundation’s significant achievements,
the author relied largely on documentation offered by rich and extensive
archival sources, supplemented by documents and interviews with officials
of major nongovernmental organizations who were recipients of founda-
tion grants.
Chapter 2
C h i l e : A B re a k t h r o u g h
i n Fo u n d at i o n Po l i c y
T he date September 11 resonated profoundly in Latin America long before

the traumatic Al Qaeda attacks struck New York and Washington, DC, on
September 11, 2001, and the infamous term “9/11” formally entered stan-
dard English dictionaries. On that day in 1973, Chile—perhaps the most
democratic country in Latin America—was staggered by an extraordinarily
brutal military coup under General Augusto Pinochet. Repercussions were
immediately felt everywhere, including on an extensive Ford Foundation
program in that country and extending all the way to the foundation’s head-
quarters in New York. The effects would be enormous, transforming the
foundation into a philanthropy with human rights at its core, rather than
on its margins.
Prior to the military coup, Chile fitted neatly into the foundation’s inter-
national program for development that stressed research assistance in the
social sciences, which was geared to promoting education at various levels, as
well as fostering the technical skills of management and administration in
economic projects, along with ending sexual discrimination and maximizing
gender opportunities. Few areas in the category of development could boast
of the myriad social and economic progress as Chile had. Its long history of
democratic institutions, like its enviable political pluralism involving a variety
of parties with separate ideological orientations, and its comparatively strong
economy with a vibrant middle class, were the envy of Latin America and of
the developing world in general.
Of particular importance, especially to the Ford Foundation, was Chile’s
highly educated and sophisticated intellectual community, certainly rare in the
Third World, and with perhaps some exceptions, outstanding even in Latin
America. It was hardly accidental that the foundation placed a key office for
the Latin American Southern Cone in Santiago, Chile. The foundation’s New
York headquarters had extended grants to Chile, until 1973, totaling over six
million dollars, including the remainder of a ten million dollar commitment
given in 1965 for ten years to the University of Chile.1
So effective had Ford Foundation grants been with individual scholars that,
according to Jeffrey Puryear, a historian of the grant program in the area, the
economic and social reforms initiated by the previous Christian Democratic
administration of Eduardo Frei and extended under its socialist successor,
Salvador Allende, could be considered very much the foundation’s product.
Ineluctably, the nature and target of the military coup could not but pro-
foundly affect the reform initiatives along with the work of the founda-
tion’s Southern Cone office in Chile. In addition to a major assault upon key
Chilean democratic institutions, the military focused upon, to a significant
extent, the Chilean universities that had employed precisely the reformist
scholars and researchers who had served as grantees of the foundation’s
Santiago bureau. A half-year after the coup, the head of that office, Peter Bell,
wrote to William Carmichael, a high foundation official in New York, noting
that the bureau staff was “disquieted” and “dismayed” by the “junta’s disrup-
tion of long-established political and social institutions.”2
With universities and scholars as the target of the stormy military vio-
lence, the Ford Foundation was confronted with serious personnel problems
related to grantees. The massive military intervention in university life began
almost immediately. Within two weeks of taking power, the military announced
that it would remove university rectors, the administrative heads of univer-
sities, and replace them with military-designated rectors. A “cleansing process”
of suspected “leftist” faculty was initiated, accompanied by witch-hunts and
the closing of institutes and departments. According to a study written by
Puryear, a former program officer of the Ford Foundation Chilean bureau
staff, at least two thousand faculty members of the leading university—the
University of Chile—were fired by 1975.3 This constituted fairly close to a
quarter of the faculty.
Since many of the dismissed faculty members were recipients of founda-
tion grants and, importantly, came from the intellectual stratum of society
that the foundation especially favored, it was scarcely surprising that urgent
emergency measures had to be undertaken. In October 1973, only a couple
of weeks after the coup, the foundation’s trustees voted for a special appro-
priation to aid displaced intellectuals from Chile. Since some intellectuals had
also been displaced at approximately the same time from the Soviet Union’s
educational institutions, the grant, for reasons of geographical and ideologi-
cal balance, embraced both sets of displaced intellectuals.
Grants followed to nonuniversity academic bodies to help place the dis-
missed academics who had been forced into exile. Either new jobs abroad
would be sought or graduate fellowships pursued. A total of some $230,000
was approved for this purpose on January 14–15, 1974.4 The emergency
funding operation was handled not directly but rather through a regional
organization of social science centers involving groups of emigrant scholars
located, respectively, in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.5
The amount allocated during a two-year period came to nearly $375,000.6
Later, following the March 1976 military coup in Argentina, when another
large group of social scientists was dismissed, the foundation approved an
Chile: A Breakthrough in Foundation Policy 27
additional grant of one hundred thousand dollars to help these intellectuals

relocate. Approximately three hundred scholars from Argentina were assisted
in obtaining employment. A slight majority of the displaced were placed ini-
tially in various centers in Latin America, like Brazil, with the balance relo-
cated in Europe and the United States.7 For younger social science scholars
who had not completed their research tasks, the foundation organized a large
graduate fellowship program. Dozens were given fellowships to enable them
to obtain a master’s degree. Funding was also available for doctoral programs
in Europe and the United States. The amount of the awards for graduate fel-
lowships was quite large—$1.7 million between 1974 and the end of 1978.8
While a considerable number of Chilean intellectuals went abroad to escape
official government pressure or to acquire a livelihood, the bulk of the threat-
ened intellectual community chose to remain in Chile. Of course, the stan-
dard institutional means for their sustenance—the universities—were closed
to them. But the dismantling of the major institutional source of their cre-
ativity, it turned out, could be and was replaced by an alternative source. In
virtually no time at all, an entirely new institutional framework for displaced
intellectuals had sprung up that took the form of private social-science
research centers.9 Prior to the coup, only three such centers existed in all of
Chile. By 1988, a reliable estimate placed the number of these research
centers at no less than forty-nine. They employed a total of 664 profession-
als, 134 of which had done graduate work at major universities in Europe
and the United States. In contrast, Chilean universities after the coup
employed less than a third of that number of social-science researchers.
The overall academic results of the Ford Foundation initiatives were more
than impressive. Literally hundreds of books were produced by the academ-
ics at the new research centers. Strikingly, in addition, the centers published
more than twenty new academic journals or bulletins. Being able to publish
research findings was rather important for the academics. Initially, there was
virtually no way for them to reach their colleagues, their students, or the
public at large, as they were excluded from universities and bookstores
openly refused to sell their publications. The Ford Foundation provided the
initial funding assistance to enable the new research centers to begin and sus-
tain operations in the seventies. In fact, the new research centers became
major recipients of foundation funds in Latin America’s Southern Cone.
Between 1975 and 1978, eleven of these centers in Chile, as well as several in
Argentina and Uruguay, received $1.9 million.10 (Uruguay had been sub-
jected to a military coup and dictatorship shortly before the Pinochet coup
in Chile.) Another two hundred thousand dollars was awarded to small
groups of scholars engaged in joint research.
This was just the beginning. The foundation continued its assistance into
the eighties with quite large sums. Between 1980 and 1988, it provided, on
an annual basis, an average total of over eight hundred thousand dollars.11
There were, of course, other major donors from Canada, Sweden, and other
countries, but the Ford Foundation’s basic role stood out significantly.
Remarkably, the research centers would become the spawning ground for
Chilean intellectuals to engage in political discussions, to debate strategies,
and to formulate the democratic political program of the future. Their
research in the areas of public opinion polling, for example, enabled them to
anticipate democratic victories in the historic government referendum of 1990
and in the subsequent elections. Preparations could be made for democratic
programs and structures. In addition, activists could begin preparation to
run for political office. Thus, the research centers came to be the harbinger
of the eventual democratic replacement of the Pinochet military dictatorship.
To the extent that the Ford Foundation was a major factor in the creation
and development of these research centers, it helped lay the groundwork of
Chile’s democratic future.
If the foundation had been “dismayed” and “disquieted” by the events of
the brutal 1973 repression, it did not lead to an immediate change in policy
for developing countries. Of course, important initiatives were taken to assist
in providing new opportunities to scholars and intellectuals who had been on
grants, whether abroad or at home. The creation of research centers as an
alternative to university teaching was a climax for the initiative. But the assis-
tance to grantees was hardly a radical departure for policy makers. A top
foundation specialist on Latin America put the matter of the Ford Foundation’s
role rather delicately when, in a memorandum to the foundation’s headquar-
ters, he wrote that the Santiago staff could hardly “refuse to assist fellow men
who are lawlessly persecuted.”12
But, while they were humanitarian and not revolutionary, the actions
taken were certainly significant and unexpected. According to a foundation
official in the Chilean office, “some in the Foundation disapproved of the
lengths” taken by the Santiago staff “in assisting some politically controver-
sial individuals.” The objectors argued that such assistance would “jeopard-
ize the Foundation’s other more important activities.”13 The supposedly
“more important activities” were those geared to economic development.
Indeed, the question of priority for developing countries with the founda-
tion’s policy’s inevitable corollary of cooperation with established Third W
World
regimes or, certainly, avoiding conflict or collision with them was now begin-
ning to pose unanticipated questions. Supposing such countries came under
the rule of ruthlessly repressive regimes, what should the foundation choose
to do? Should the foundation then pull out? Or should it stay and confront
the possibility of being thrown out? The situation of Chile in 1973 was not
an altogether new phenomenon. As early as the mid-sixties, the foundation
was obliged to confront the issue of how far it had to go in cooperating with
repressive regimes.
Three regimes in which the foundation had conducted economic programs
in the sixties had taken on a particularly repressive character. Indonesia, after
a military coup directed against a communist threat, was transformed into
the brutal military ascendancy of Suharto, accompanied by the crushing of
all liberties along with mass genocidal killings of communists and Chinese.
At approximately the same time, in Africa, a major leader in the liberation
movement on the continent, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, had transformed his

rule into a veritable dictatorship. In Europe, too, at least one former demo-
cratic state, Greece, though it was not in the category of developing societies,
had been taken over by a military coup led by several colonels. Fundamental
liberties were systematically assaulted and then crushed. Significantly, the foun-
dation chose to discontinue or critically reduce its economic operations in
these countries in the sixties.14 It had concluded that any association with these
overtly antidemocratic and repressive regimes would prove embarrassing.
Latin America was by no means immune from the tendencies toward mil-
itary dictatorships during the sixties. Brazilian democracy was overthrown in
1964 and a similar development was beginning to unfold in Argentina. In
1968, Peru and Bolivia succumbed to military rule as had Paraguay a decade
earlier in 1954. In most of Central America, one man prevailed. During the
seventies, military dictatorships took control in Uruguay (1973), followed
soon afterward in Chile and then in Argentina in 1976. As early as 1971, the
foundation’s leading expert on Latin America, Kalman Silvert, offered a
major rationale for later foundation decisions by drawing upon actions it had
taken in the sixties in Indonesia, Ghana, and Greece. He wrote in a memo-
randum to the foundation’s headquarters in New York that if the Ford
Foundation “cannot make a very strong case for distinguishing [its] activities
from the support of politically repressive behavior in the host country, it
should withdraw.”15 It was a compelling argument, but could the foundation
afford to abdicate its responsibility in developing countries?
Beyond the job-placement and fellowship programs and the support of
the new research centers, the Ford Foundation’s regional offices, in the sev-
enties, decided to also engage in a somewhat more risky and overt undertak-
ing that, if only indirectly, carried overtones of an activist challenge to the
repressive host regime. A former staffer of the Chilean regional offices dis-
closed that certain actions were taken with respect to scholars who had been
imprisoned or held by the authorities without charges. The regional officer
chose to formally notify the U.S. embassy that a grantee or someone involved
with a Ford Foundation program had been arrested. The information was
accompanied by a request that the embassy report back any pertinent news
of the matter.16 Strikingly, this same procedure was to be followed in the
event that an academic was discovered to be “missing.” The procedure had
the potential for a positive outcome even if the regional office and the
embassy had no power to affect the results of the case. Formal requests by
the U.S. embassy for information, noted the former regional officer staffer,
could not fail to “create [a] public record of the incident and [thereby] let
the [Chilean] government know that a third party is interested in the fate
of the persons involved.”17 Numerous academics in other countries pursued
similar inquiries. In the judgment of the foundation staff, this type of for-
mal inquiry “undoubtedly contributed significantly to reduce harsh treat-
ment of the prisoner.”18
Whether the U.S. embassy went beyond formal inquiry of the Chilean
authorities is by no means certain. The U.S. Ambassador to Chile, David
Popper, was severely chastised by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when he

dared to raise human rights problems with the Pinochet authorities. Kissinger
sardonically commented that the ambassador was not supposed to be con-
ducting a political science lecture in a classroom.19 Recent official documen-
tation disclosures scarcely suggest a vigorous response by the United States
to the ruthlessness of the Pinochet dictatorship. Indeed, for those with a
commitment to human rights, U.S. policy during and after the Pinochet
coup was embarrassing. Only recently, Larry Rohter, the highly experienced
New York Times correspondent in Latin America wrote from Santiago that
“the moment” Allende was elected president of Chile in 1970, the United
States “conspired with the military here to overthrow him. That resulted in
the 1973 coup.”20
Indeed, Ford Foundation staffers both in Santiago and in New York, early
on, had become keenly aware of the brutalities of the Pinochet regime and of
questionable behavior by U.S. embassy officials. Richard R. Fagen, a promi-
nent professor of political science at Stanford University who had spent
eighteen months in Chile doing research and serving as a consultant to the
foundation, sent, on October 8, 1973, an extraordinarily detailed report on
developments in Chile to a high foundation official in New York, William
Carmichael. The report was actually a copy of a long letter Fagen had writ-
ten to Senator William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. Copies of the report to Fulbright were sent to Kissinger, several
key senators and congressmen, and close relatives of three American researchers
in Santiago who had been seized by Pinochet’s military. In his covering note
to Carmichael, Fagen related that he had sent a copy to Peter Bell, head
of the foundation office in Santiago, with the cautionary suggestion that
it be treated with extreme care in that city. In a separate personal letter to
Carmichael, Fagen observed that the latter should be free to share it “as
widely as you see fit within the Foundation.”21
While Fagen had completed his research and left Santiago for the United
States in July 1973, two months before the coup, he sought to give Fulbright
background information on the three young American researchers—Charles
Horman, Frank Teruggi, and David Hathaway—who had been seized during
the coup. All three had worked for Fagen, providing translation services in
the preparation of his book. Fagen kept in close touch with the respective
families of the three and, at the same time, sought information about them
from available officials and informal sources. The account to Fulbright is a
veritable day-by-day report of what happened to the three men—Teruggi
was killed, Hathaway had somehow been released, and Horman had disap-
peared. In addition, the Fagen report provided insights into various persons
in the U.S. embassy in Santiago, particularly those who manifested a virulent
anticommunist stance.
As it was written by an extremely knowledgeable source, although not an
on-the-spot observer, the Fagen letter was remarkably informative about the
Chilean situation; yet it was also especially revealing about embassy policy
and practice. Fagen bitingly cited the following statement of an embassy offi-
cial addressed to Joyce Horman—Charles Horman’s wife—who had inquired
about her missing husband: “Probably [he] just wanted to get away from
you.” That was how Joyce Horman recalled the comment. Fagen, in repeat-
ing it, wondered openly to Fulbright, “is this individual or bureaucratic
sadism—or both?” In Fagen’s covering letter to Carmichael, he made explicit
his contempt for U.S. policy with regard to Chile and especially with respect
to incarcerated or disappeared Americans in that country. “Put bluntly,”
said Fagen, “I see culpability in very high places in our government (as well
as low places).” But even as he chastised official U.S. policy and practice,
Fagen, as a former Ford Foundation consultant, was “pleased” to hear of
the relocation of Chilean scholars. He added, “I have heard indirectly that
Ford is backing this effort.” He was certain that the Santiago office would
be a “key point in any communication net that is established.” In his judg-
ment, “this is important work” in which he took personal pride and offered
his personal “help.”22
Carmichael was impressed with Fagen’s report. After sharing it with
w Francis
Sutton, a vice-president of the foundation, and another high foundation
official, he and the others chose to send it to the Ford Foundation President,
McGeorge Bundy, in a memo dated October 13, 1973.23 Carmichael did not
think that the Fagen report called “for any action on our part” but he cau-
tioned that if it were made public, it would “complicate our relationships”
with some of the U.S. embassy officials. At the same time, he recognized that
the Santiago bureau’s relations with the U.S. embassy officials were “already
a bit strained.”24
While the Santiago office did not seek to get involved with official State
Department policy immediately—other than with the relocation of Chilean
scholar-grantees—six months later, the office would undertake a significant
step. It concerned the foreign minister and later defense minister of Chile
under Allende—Clodomiro Almeyda. He was identified by the Santiago bureau
chief, Peter Bell, in a confidential memo to Bundy on March 28, 1974, as a for-
mer professor of political science at the University of Chile.25 Bell described
him in glowing terms as a scholar and intellectual who impressed everyone
with his sophistication, articulateness, and honesty.
First, Bell noted how Almeyda had chosen to deliver himself to the
Pinochet forces on September 11, 1973. Soon afterward, he was subjected to
physical and psychological torture by the military. Almeyda’s wife, in a request
to Bell for assistance to her incarcerated husband, related that Almeyda was in
a very serious condition. In his memo to Bundy, Bell took the rather extraor-
dinary step of asking the foundation president “to consider calling Henry
Kissinger in order to ask his intervention.” Whether Bundy followed through
on Peter Bell’s request is not known. Nor is it known whether Kissinger
would have cooperated, given his general indifference to human rights viola-
tions and his comments to Ambassador Popper. Bell concluded his memo
by observing that “a number of European governments have shown special
interest in Almeyda’s case,” but that all of this would “not together carry the
weight of an expression of concern by Kissinger.”26
Attached to the Bell memorandum were typed “notes” about the unusu-
ally talented Almeyda written by the knowledgeable activist and social-scientist
consultant of the Santiago office, Kalman Silvert. These notes had been pre-
pared on March 27, the day before Bell sent his memo to Bundy. Silvert
reported that he had been informed by Mrs. Almeyda that “several months
ago,” Willy Brandt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, sent a
“personal letter to Pinochet” expressing concern for the safety of Almeyda
and other Christian Democrats who had been arrested. Silvert also had heard
a rumor, according to his “notes,” that Kissinger, too, had “inquired about
Almeyda,” but Silvert did not give this rumor too much credence.27
The episode appears to have had a rare happy ending. Two weeks after the
initial Peter Bell memo, a second confidential memo from Bell was sent to
Bundy.28 Dated April 9, 1974, it reported that Almeyda’s situation was said
to have “improved.” Peter Bell expressed the opinion that the improvement
in his prisoner’s status—which meant that adequate food, fresh air, and
access to radio and books was available to Almeyda—was “probably” due
to the “intervention” of Willy Brandt, the Catholic Church, and the U.S.
government. The memo did not indicate the name of any person in the
U.S. government who might have been helpful. It did, however, report that
Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and its Committee for Latin
American Studies had offered a visiting professorship to Almeyda. Of
particular importance was the fact that, according to the memo, the State
Department had used its “good offices for conveying the information.”
It is clear from the memo that Bell had been in New York while discus-
sions were taking place at Princeton University, and he was keeping very
much abreast of them. That he was personally involved in the proceedings
appears most likely. Soon afterward, a top foundation executive in New
York, David Bell, the vice-president of the Ford Foundation’s International
Division, wrote a personal note to Bundy that carried a strong endorsement
of Peter Bell’s various initiatives in Chile with respect to human rights. The
endorsement was reported in the note, which is dated April 18, 1974, as hav-
ing been made by Robert McNamara, the former U.S. secretary of defense
who had become president of the World Bank. David Bell reported that
McNamara had called that very morning with remarks “very complimen-
tary” about Peter Bell who was “doing an excellent job.” McNamara noted
that the foundation was “absolutely right” in what it was doing in Chile
and ought “to remain active” there.
Further illuminating the remarkably courageous role played by the Ford
Foundation in Chile during the days of Pinochet’s military coup was a rare,
all-but-forgotten episode in the classic film Missing,g produced and directed
by the great moviemaker, Constantine Costa-Gavras, in the early eighties.
The film focused upon the efforts of the father of Charles Horman, the
American freelance journalist who had “disappeared” in the very early days
of the coup. The father, powerfully played by the distinguished actor Jack
Lemmon, seeks everywhere, including the U.S. embassy in Santiago, for infor-
mation about his missing son. Repeatedly frustrated by contradictory or utterly
inadequate information, the father decides to visit the Ford Foundation office.
Here he was provided with some breakthrough information. The founda-
tion’s program adviser in economics related that he had acquired second-hand
information that suggested that Charles Horman was killed in the National
Stadium where thousands of liberals, leftists, labor leaders, and dissenters
were incarcerated by coup leaders.
This episode was by no means fictitious. In an interoffice memo soon after
the movie appeared and had won strong critical reviews in the entertainment
world and beyond,29 the Ford Foundation’s Chilean expert, Jeffrey Puryear,
advised all the top officials of the organization that Horman’s father did “in
fact” visit the foundation’s office in October 1973 and was received by the
office’s assistant “representative,” Peter Hakim. Regrettably, at the time, the
formal “representative” of the office, Peter Bell, was traveling abroad. Invited
by Hakim to join the conversation was Lovell Jarvis, the program adviser in
economics. Jarvis, the next day, called Horman’s father and related that he
was advised by an unnamed diplomat from the embassy of an English-speaking
country that Charles Horman had been shot and killed and then buried in
the Stadium’s wall.
Puryear, in a memorandum almost a decade later on March 17, 1982,
commented that “this proved to be true.” The Puryear memo went on to
disclose that the Santiago office as shown in the film was not genuine and
that, actually, that movie scene was shot in Mexico City. Nonetheless, there
was some talk by the film’s crew with local foundation officials about shoot-
ing the film in the real office. But the initiative, reportedly, came to naught
after the Ford official asked to see the film’s script. In Puryear’s expert judg-
ment, “much of the story in Missing” g is accurate. But, at the same time, he
accused Costa-Gavras of failing to “document serious charges” that the U.S.
government “was involved in planning the coup” and, more disturbingly,
“was aware of and approved an order to kill Horman.” Even, with this
dereliction, the foundation Chilean specialist found the movie “gripping and
provocative.” The following final judgment was then added that highlighted
his own sympathies: “And it is a pleasure to find the Ford Foundation among
the good guys.” That it was underlined, a device not frequently used in interof-
fice memos, was certainly revealing.
To this day, the foundation retains a keen interest in the Horman case. His
wife, Joyce, runs a “Charles Horman Truth Project” that is “financed,” accord-
ing to the New York Times, s “mainly by the Ford Foundation.” In December
2000, she filed a criminal suit in Chile seeking responses from the former U.S.
secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, and other American officials about the
alleged U.S. connection with her husband’s apprehension and death.30
Costa-Gavras’s film, which brought to life the Chilean horrors of September
11, 1973, was welcomed by the foundation. The Horman killing and the
subsequent atrocities, after all, would help prompt a momentous shift in the
foundation’s priorities. The public airing of the traumatic significance of that
date and of the massive human tribulations that the coup had wrought
remained a continuing purpose of the foundation. It expressed keen interest
in the preparation, in the late twentieth century, of a powerful documentary
of the events that occurred at the National Stadium from September 11 until
November 7, 1973. The documentary, Estadio Nacional, l was made by
Carmen Luz Parot, the Chilean investigative journalist, and was based upon
interviews with some thirty survivors of the thousands tortured at the
Stadium.31 The interviews were undercut with period footage. For the pro-
ducer, it was essential to remember the terrible reality of those horrendous
days before “national reconciliation” could follow. “You cannot forget until
you [first] know something that can be forgotten,” noted Parot. The film,
released in 2001, received repeated recognition at international festivals.
More significantly, it has been shown throughout Chile in universities,
schools, and youth organizations. While it received its primary funding from
the Chilean government, the Ford Foundation provided essential financial
support with respect to the process of subtitling and distribution.
In the spring of 1974, the situation on the ground in Chile remained dan-
gerous, even if the local foundation bureau displayed remarkable courage—
though necessarily limited—in its ability to defy, or rather circumvent, rep-
ressive government policy. The times were profoundly difficult and threaten-
ing. How should the Santiago bureau deal with its active and its present tra-
ditional responsibility? And, in view of a most uncertain future, how was that
responsibility to be fulfilled in the forthcoming months and years? The issue
weighed heavily on Peter Bell’s mind. At its most elemental level, how should
the office staff function? It was the staff, after all, that stood at the very core
of his regional operation. In a memorandum to Carmichael in New York
on April 1, 1974, Bell proposed a radical shift in standard bureaucratic
staffing.32 It was made necessary, he said, by the arbitrariness of dictatorial
rule that had brought about the “disruption of long established political and
social institutions.” While the past six months had “disquieted” and even
“dismayed” him, the current cruel and brutal trends necessitated a most
“pessimistic” outlook for the “foreseeable future.” He expected the “cleans-
ing” process in universities, where the foundation had provided grants, “to
broaden and deepen.” Under these circumstances, it was “unclear as to how
much room there will be for independent, critical research in Chile.”
Priority, of course, was given to the placing of scholars and grantees at
places where they might continue their research. Peter Bell took pride in the
scores of individuals who had been placed in research positions or provided
with fellowships. Yet, with “the massive violation of guarantees . . . basic to
scientific and educational institutions,” the office staff could not “recommend
new grants to Chilean universities.” Therefore, it was essential, wrote Bell, to
significantly reduce the bureau’s staff by almost half and to reduce office
space. But such cutbacks were only seen as a beginning. In Bell’s judgment,
the entire staff would have to be withdrawn for the time being, and the entire
grant program would have to be handled by Ford Foundation “visitors”
from New York who, of course, would be persons fully experienced on the
circumstances in the area. Not only was there an aversion to awarding grants
to universities, but the following two other factors also came into play: the
deep “discomfort” of the local bureau staff “to be working under conditions
of tension and alienation,” and the enormous psychological problem con-
fronting staffers “caught between the eddies of collaboration and the rocks
of subversion.”
Yet, even as the staff was to be withdrawn—and this would rest with deci-
sions taken by the vice-president of the International Division, David Bell,
and President Bundy—the “visitors,” thought Peter Bell, would provide a “con-
tinuity of Ford Foundation personnel” if only to demonstrate the founda-
tion’s “supportive attitude toward a ‘future’ continuation of scientific and
scholarly work.” Decisions on staffing and about the future course of grant-
making in Chile were to be considered at a staff meeting in New York on
September 16–19. Key players in both Santiago and at foundation headquar-
ters were to be present, according to an interoffice memorandum prepared
for Bundy on September 11, 1974.33
The headquarters’ perspective, as reflected in the memo, was different
from that of Peter Bell. A very vital consideration—money—had taken hold
in New York. The memo placed great emphasis on the “constraint” resulting
from the “budget situation” of the foundation, a “situation” that was not
yet clarified in the memo. In an interview much later, vice-president Francis
Sutton related that the stock market that year had dropped very sharply,
resulting in a severe drop in the value of the Ford Foundation’s stock.34 The
negative impact upon the budget was inevitable. Under the financial circum-
stances, the withdrawal of staff from Santiago might have appeared partic-
ularly welcome. But it is clear from the memo to Bundy that New York
officials thought of pursuing “selected new grants to Southern Cone institu-
tions” even if they would necessarily be “much more modest” in scope. The
author of the memo was oriented, or so he explained, to the continuing need
to “expand intellectual opportunity” and “maintain lines of communication
which would otherwise be broken.”
Seeking, somehow, to make a public record about the missing or the dis-
appeared, even when done with caution and restraint, clearly meant moving
forward on human rights matters. The change in foundation policy did not
come suddenly, but rather slowly and by small steps.35 By late 1974 and
early 1975, a clear turn in policy had been consummated. According to David
Heaps, an insider, “concern for intellectual freedom [and] human rights”
would have “greater priority” than “economic and social development poli-
cies.”36 No revolutionary shift was intended; rather, the object was “to miti-
gate some of the worst effects” of the military dictatorship.
What this meant on the local level was rather subtle, as the arbitrariness
of the authorities could be dangerous. One tactic that could be pursued
was to “probe actively the limits of acceptable behavior” and, at the same
time, to “push the [military] government . . . to permit certain kinds of activ-
ity.”37 Regrettably, no detailed record exists of the effects of the “probe” and
the “push.” Still, it was believed that foreign assistance institutions, like the
Ford Foundation, were often “uniquely” able to influence local authorities
through means of “protesting” restrictive policies or “protecting” threat-
ened intellectuals.38
On the headquarters level, the tendency to urge cautious behavior was less
necessary. The Ford Foundation as an institution did not confront immedi-
ate and dangerous threats. The absence of an imminent challenge meant the
possibility of a more relaxed atmosphere, permitting a deeper inquiry into
the past and the question of whether a fundamental shift in policy was required.
A circumstance facilitating the need for such an inquiry was the very fact that
Chile was not unique: rather similar acts occurring elsewhere in the world
were pressing for a serious and significant shift in policy.
A particular program officer at the foundation’s International Division
who was keenly aware of parallel developments in Eastern Europe commen-
surate with those in the Latin American Southern Cone chose to examine
and explore the connections. His name was David Heaps, and he was a long-
time foundation staffer with an imaginative and perceptive view of Eastern
European events and how they were related to developments in Latin America.
At the very same time that his colleagues in Santiago were weighing how to
proceed in Chile in order to reduce repression, Heaps became cognizant of
what he would call “a pandemic phenomenon” in Eastern Europe and else-
where around the world—an open and sustained assault on human rights.39
The most vivid expression of this assault was a vast increase in the number of
political prisoners around the globe. The dissident movement in communist
Eastern Europe offered tangible evidence of outrageous repression in the
form of a hefty increase of such prisoners. Andrei D. Sakharov, the great
humanist and physicist of the USSR, had indicated that in that country alone
there were ten thousand political prisoners.40
To familiarize himself with the nature of the political problem, Heaps trav-
eled to Geneva in May 1974 to meet with knowledgeable sources at the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).41 The committee was
deeply involved in quietly visiting political prisoners in countries around the
world. Although its officials lacked a detailed database, they could speak with
some authority about political prisoners, a topic that was a specific concern
of the committee. The details gleaned by Heaps from the committee and
other sources prompted him to suggest an alternative program for the
anticipated, so-called “1980 Budget” of the Ford Foundation. The “1980
Budget” should not be considered an actual budget for the year 1980; rather,
it was a series of documents examining the foundation’s long-term program-
matic commitment.42 Clearly, Heaps was angling for a radical shift in the
foundation’s future that would diminish economic assistance and move
toward human rights. In a memorandum to David Bell, the vice-president
of the International Division, on July 17, 1974, Heaps criticized the priority
given in Ford Foundation regional offices to combating hunger and fighting
for economic justice. “Human welfare” as described in the original and basic
documents of the foundation in 1949–50, according to Heaps, warranted a
reinterpretation and, therefore, the fundamental modification of priorities.
After a review of “the pervasive abuse of human rights” around the world,
Heaps concluded that if there is to be an improvement in this “pandemic”
situation involving political prisoners, then human rights must be considered
“just as indispensable to the civilizing process as the mitigation of hunger
and economic injustice.”43 This new language was nothing short of startling.
He began his memorandum by stating the purpose of “an alternative pro-
gramme interest.” Later, almost with a kind of mea culpa formulation, Heaps
wrote, “we have never displayed any systematic concern with . . . the perva-
sive abuse of human rights.” It was time to confront the new reality.
Even as he called for a shift in priorities, Heaps pointed to the direction
the foundation should take to remedy the priority imbalance. He called atten-
tion to the fact that only a few nongovernmental organizations and scholars
were currently working in the field of human rights. It was precisely through
the subsidization of human rights NGOs and scholarly research that the
foundation could seek a major remedy for the unfolding, horrifying abuses
of the day, especially the spread of the seizure and sometimes torture of polit-
ical prisoners, by a number of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
Heaps, of course, could not fail to be aware of the fact that the foundation
embraced a large number of staffers who thought in traditional terms about
the functions of regional offices and the priority given to fighting poverty
and economic injustice. To force a shift away from the centrality of economic
concerns was certain to prove at least psychologically disconcerting and ide-
ologically disturbing. He anticipated that the established and conservative
staffers would contend that placing human rights advocacy on the same level
as promoting economic programs would only jeopardize the latter; the foun-
dation’s historic and traditional priority. For Heaps, such an attitude was sim-
ply “inhumanely technocratic.”44
The Heaps memo became a shot across the bow when it was circulated
with the rest of the “1980 Budget” to the foundation staff, including those
in Latin American bureaus. Apparently, Heaps had allies with a similar view
to his own. Thus, one important foundation regional staffer in Latin America,
James Gardner, wrote to Heaps himself on October 7, 1974, saying that he
found his July 17, 1974, memo “particularly interesting” as it “raises the
right issues.” Gardner asked to be informed by Heaps on his “plans and
progress.” The next day, October 8, 1974, Gardner sent another prominent
regional staffer, Robert Edwards, a copy of Heaps’s memo, emphasizing that
it had raised some interesting issues.45 The response in other quarters of the
foundation was quite positive. At the very top level, the Heaps perspective
was thought to warrant serious attention even if it marked a potential rad-
ical shift in traditional foundation policy. The foundation executives went
beyond mere circulation of his proposal. Heaps was asked to expand his
thinking into a lengthy essay on human rights to be presented to a meeting
of the International Division in September 1975. That step was to trigger a
major transition in the history of the Ford Foundation.
Gardner’s view was especially significant. He was a specialist on issues of
law, having graduated from Yale Law School after earlier completing under-
graduate work at Harvard University. When he wrote to Heaps, he was head
of the foundation’s office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In his laudatory memo,
Gardner placed considerable emphasis on the need to use law as a weapon to
advance human rights and welfare objectives. He returned to this point in a
memo dated February 7, 1975, that was sent to his colleagues working on
the Chile problem, both locally and on the international level.46 His focus at
this point was upon a proposal advanced by a certain scholar, David Trubek,
who was seeking funding for a book linking law to human rights and devel-
opment. Almost immediately, in commenting upon the Trubek request,
Gardner moved to Heaps’s new and revolutionary argument about prioritiz-
ing human rights. Gardner did not see the issue quite the same way as Heaps
did, but it was clear that he was seeking to raise the level of human rights
in the hierarchy of values at the Ford Foundation. Trubek had evidently
proposed an inquiry of a possible “trade-off” between development and
human rights.
Priority, in the Gardner perspective, belonged to human rights. Human
rights, or as he also put it, “the rule (and misrule) of law issues” were due
process, fixed entitlements, and an autonomous judiciary. Without such rule
of law elements, and, therefore, without basic human rights, development
could not prosper. For Gardner, there was a critical “international flavor” to
the issue that would make it of concern to U.S. diplomacy. The pursuit of
human rights, he thought, would be “problematic” when dealing with
“developmental matters.” If the United States were to focus on development
as it engaged in “political interventions,” its “attention to issues of human
rights” would, at most, prove to be quite “frail.” He recalled to his colleagues
how Secretary of State Henry Kissinger brushed off U.S. Ambassador
Popper when he “raised the issue of abuse of human rights by the new
[Chilean] regime.” The proposed Trubek study was seen as warranting foun-
dation interest and support. But it was also apparent, whether or not the
Trubek proposal was accepted, that the foundation was beginning to con-
front the need to prioritize human rights even as it continued to support
development projects.
As important as the demanding call for a fundamental shift in emphasis
from development to human rights, if not more so, was an emerging recog-
nition that nongovernmental organizations with special interest in human
rights were the key to making that shift viable. Governments were unlikely
to be responsive. Third World regimes, as Heaps noted in his breakthrough
July 1974 memo, were all too often human rights abusers, especially if they
were failed states or were wracked by civil conflict and sharp social cleavages
that had eventually led to military dictatorships. Major developed countries
were indifferent. Even an advanced industrial state like the USSR was a major
abuser, thought Heaps, while its challengers from the democratic world were,
in his view, all too frequently inclined to play the Machiavellian card.
International institutions like the United Nations, wrote Heaps, were so
riddled with cold war cleavages that human rights progress was all but para-
lyzed. It was hardly accidental that the Ford Foundation had rarely made ref-
erence to the UN and its various organs, including the UN Commission on
Human Rights, that were subjected at that time to sharp criticism by non-
governmental human rights organizations. Heaps’s comment about the
UN and other “official” international agencies was contemptuously harsh.
He described them as: “ineffectual and tendentious.” If the topic of human
rights was addressed at all, statements and resolutions by the UN and its
Commission of Human Rights constituted “pious platitudes except in special
situations politically congenial to majority blocs of particular countries.”
Heaps was referring to the prevailing alliance at the UN between the Soviet
Union and Third World countries.
How, then, was progress to be made? Heaps sought the solution in the
efforts of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that were “seriously and
devotedly concerned” with human rights abuses worldwide. The trouble
was, as his July 1974 memo noted, that these organizations were “few” in
number and “none of them . . . has adequate material and human resources
to meet the magnitude of prevailing needs.” Such a perspective could only
have wrought a totally pessimistic outlook about the future. But a Third
World trip, specifically to Latin America, by a foundation vice-president,
David Bell, resulted in a distinctive positive approach that could correct this
somewhat limiting perspective. Writing in a memorandum prepared on May
29, 1975, Bell declared that “he was much struck by the significance to Chile
of [international] human rights organizations.”47 It was one of the local
groups connected with the Catholic Church’s Archdiocese—the Committee
of Cooperation for Peace (or Ecumenical Peace Committee)—that provided
Bell with crucial documentation about significant possibilities offered by
local and international NGOs.
David Bell came back to relate to his colleagues in New York that “the
visits and reports” of Amnesty International, the International Commission
of Jurists, and the Human Rights Commission—an official body of the
Organization of American States (OAS)—stimulated “international political
and economic support from those trying to work inside Chile on human
rights problems.”48 Bell’s comments compelled a modification in Heaps’s
initial perspective. In his Draft Report on Human Rights, s published a year
after his very influential memorandum, he would concentrate upon the value
of human rights NGOs, though this emphasis would come after a presenta-
tion on the urgency of the subject of human rights.
The new Heaps manuscript would mark a turning point in the transforma-
tion of Ford Foundation policy, even though formal policy change would not
come until the following year, and only after a detailed in-house elaboration
was made upon and certain alterations were made to the Heaps thesis. The
essay by Heaps was unusually large, and was quite possibly one of the largest
in foundation history, encompassing sixty-six typewritten pages and approx-
imately twenty thousand words. An obituary story in the New York Times
after his death on June 10, 2000, emphasized that “his work contributed to
a decision by the Ford Foundation to start a large-scale international human
rights program.”49
During his lifetime, Heaps was hardly known in human rights circles. Still,
his major unpublished work testified to how an individual, even a fairly obscure
one, can alter the role of a leading institution that, in turn, can spark an entire
era of social change. Born in Winnipeg, Canada, he served with the Canadian
Army in Europe during World War II. After winning the military cross for
bravery, he joined the Ford Foundation in 1959. During the sixties, he
served as the foundation’s representative in a number of African countries.
Later, during the early seventies, he was active as a program officer for the
foundation in its New York headquarters. But it was his landmark report in
August 1975 that produced a huge impact. As the New York Times reported,
his “findings” led to the foundation forming “an ambitious human rights
program, now one of the largest in terms of budget and personnel.”50
Heaps’s Draft Report on Human Rights can be divided into the following
four major components: a review of the assault on human rights around the
world, an analysis of the international standards of human rights, a survey of
international human rights NGOs, and an inquiry into whether and how the
Ford Foundation should become directly involved in the human rights strug-
gle. While not systematically detailed, the review of abuses of human rights
nonetheless displayed a rather serious effort in the accumulation of data
that reveal how “capricious and arbitrary abuse of individual rights no longer
is an eccentric deviation from an accepted social norm.” On the contrary,
arbitrary abuse “has become an endemic characteristic in the exercise of state
power during the modern age.”51 What is focused upon was not the broad
gamut of usual human rights abuses, but rather the more egregious forms
of abuse by official
f state actions, such as summary and extrajudicial arrests
and detentions. Torture and extrajudicial killings could have been added,
but, perhaps by accident, were omitted. What was not omitted and, indeed
was emphasized, was the fact that the “principal victims” of egregious abuses
were “often those very intellectual elites to whom Foundation programs
are directed.”52
A vivid illustration of the problem of abuse was provided by the “growing
proliferation of political prisoners.” Both the increase of authoritarian rule
and the accompanying political instability were certain to result in an escala-
tion in the number of abuses rather than their diminution. A recent study at
the time by the Joint Committee for the Reappraisal of the Role of the Red
Cross that documented the increase was cited. The emergence of new and
unstable states had significantly increased the number of abuse victims. It was
reported that “arbitrary detention has become a standard method of handling
dissidents and dissidence.” Indeed, the method “virtually girdles the globe.”
The vast increases could not but egregiously strike at Ford Foundation pro-
gramming. The study showed that the large-scale abuses and detentions took
place precisely in many, “if not most” of the countries in which the founda-
tion “retains an active program interest.” The paper by Heaps had no hesi-
tancy in listing a dozen or so countries that fit this category. Indeed, estimated
detention figures were provided on a continent-by-continent as well as a
country-by-country basis. The estimates appeared to have come from several
sources, including mainly Amnesty International, the International Committee
of the Red Cross, major news media organizations, and, for information on
the Soviet Union, from Andrei D. Sakharov.53
Data on detention were followed by an analysis that was quite new to the
Ford Foundation. The question that was suddenly examined in a major inter-
nal study was, “are there international criteria for human rights?” After
observations about various differences of opinion concerning what consti-
tuted human rights—a discussion that reflected various ideological posi-
tions—what was called the “Holy Grail of a universally acceptable definition
of human rights” was discussed. And, of course, Heaps was referring to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations
on December 10, 1948.
Why the Universal Declaration was neglected by the foundation for all
these years was not clarified in the essay, although it did correctly emphasize
that the UN and its various commissions and agencies were “practically
impotent when not politically tendentious in the defense of human rights.”
Heaps noted that that Declaration, “warts and all,” remains “the one uni-
versal document in existence.” Nothing was said in the essay about the
International Covenants on Human Rights, which, unlike the nonbinding
Universal Declaration, was binding upon contracting parties. Since the
covenants would not formally come into force until 1976, it may have
seemed inappropriate to make reference to them.54 All of a sudden, the foun-
dation document had discovered that NGOs and the international commu-
nity had a “basic code governing the conduct of states toward their citizens,”
and that its provisions could now be “cited as accepted criteria for public
response and remedial actions.”
If, then, the international community was seized by an escalating assault
upon human rights, and if the assault was as self-evident as the standards or
criteria of how rights were clear to all, who could or should assume respon-
sibility for drawing world attention to violators and abusers of human rights?
The answer was almost self-evident. Governments could not be relied upon,
even when they have solemnly ratified international human rights treaties or
have claimed commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For these same governments either “ignore or violate them in practice.” As
for the United Nations, its halls “resound with pious platitudes” and its agen-
cies remained “ineffectual and tendentious.” One exception was the positive,
if limited, regional work of the OAS’s human rights commission.55
It was a “small platoon” of NGOs whose “members are pitifully few,”

according to Heaps, that carried on the critical work and “essential effort of
energetic exposure and mitigation of human rights abuses.”56 These promi-
nent NGOs were given special attention, but, as would be noted by Heaps’s
description of them, they hardly suggested the kind of potency needed to
take on the “pandemic” of abuses. The first was the International Committee
of the Red Cross, whose most pertinent work involved political prisoners.
While its activity was globally widespread—during 1958–75, it had investi-
gated conditions in sixty-five states with some 1300 visits to over one hun-
dred thousand political prisoners—it deliberately and consciously shunned
any publicity and disclosures, except if the abusive government chose to com-
ment about an investigation. The committee saw itself as a protector of the
abused in prisons and therefore, through agreement with the host states, it
maintained the utmost “confidentiality.”
While the committee’s usefulness beyond the certain protection it pro-
vided the political prisoner was limited, it nonetheless faced problems for
which the Ford Foundation could extend help, Heaps believed. The most
pressing one was its lack of any “serious research and documentation center.”
Of almost equal seriousness was the veritable absence of an in-training facil-
ity for its new investigators, whether at its headquarters in Geneva or in the
field. Discussion with top ICRC officials indicated that Ford Foundation
assistance would be forthcoming for training purposes.
Far more in keeping with the foundation’s purpose was the role of
Amnesty International, with its fairly large membership. Its public exposure
work at the time was regarded as its “essential strategy” and, internationally,
was considered unequalled. “More than any single organization . . . Amnesty
[had] been responsible for creating an international public climate of con-
cern for political prisoners.” While its achievements and its public exposure
strategy were impressive, the Ford Foundation could provide little assistance,
as the bulk of this NGO’s funding came from its sizable membership through
dues and contributions. Nonetheless, noted Heaps, it was seeking to create a
documentation center (recommended also to Heaps by the ICRC) that
might serve it as well as other human rights organizations. Such a center
could provide the basis for the preparation of a definitive volume, perhaps
to be published on an annual basis, of the state of human rights violations
around the world.
The third major NGO was the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ),
composed of a limited number of prominent judges and lawyers selected by
their peers. Although preeminent in earlier years, its reputation had been
deleteriously affected by the 1966–67 public exposure of covert CIA funding
of international organizations, which included the ICJ. The Ford Foundation,
in 1968, came to its financial rescue with a grant of $250,000, enabling the
ICJ to adjust for a year’s transitional period to a more modest level of oper-
ations—an annual budget of $130,000.
Although the ICJ had earlier enjoyed an eminent career in advancing

the rule of law by an activist policy of public criticism and exposés, its
now more limited budget obliged a certain restraint. Its new director, Niall
McDermott, had concluded that its traditional policy was no longer appro-
priate or effective. Rather, ICJ would now pursue the method of quiet dis-
cussions and representations with well-placed individuals in certain countries
on how best to maximize legal guarantees of human rights in those coun-
tries when they were in jeopardy. In this context, ICJ’s immediate agenda
called for holding a conference in Eastern Africa in the seventies involving
the top levels of governments in that area in order to explore means of devis-
ing legal protection for human rights in one-party states. The idea was more
than merely intriguing. With virtually all of Africa and most Third World
states considered authoritarian in character, was there a way of instituting a
modicum of human rights in them? Precisely because the possibility of
limited success existed for such probing—the presidents of both Tanzania and
Zambia had approved the conference—the foundation was asked to consider
a “modest addition of funds” to the ICJ budget. The outcome could be an
enhancement of that NGO’s “capacity to explore the possibility of working
with national authorities to devise appropriate measure[s] to protect human
rights in developing countries.”
In addition to the three key NGOs, several other NGOs were reviewed
and commented upon. What had been the favorite of the Ford Foundation—
the International Association for Cultural Freedom (IACF), which had suc-
ceeded the Congress of Cultural Freedom—was now recognized as no longer
relevant for dealing with the new and urgent human rights problems con-
fronting the international community. Its time was past and the foundation
was mainly allocating fairly sizable grants to it to preserve the tradition of
conferences and publications designed to emphasize the strength of freedom
of the individual and free inquiry. IACF contacts with intellectuals and schol-
ars in Eastern Europe constituted, said Heaps, “a precious and often solitary
link with beleaguered individuals.” At the same time, significant doubt
existed in the foundation’s leadership about the continuation of IACF
as “the central instrument of Foundation concern with human rights.” An
unusual proposal was then advanced: support for this NGO ought to con-
tinue until “a broader and more systematic Foundation entry in this field
is authorized.”57 It was no wonder that, even at this early stage, a perceptive
analyst was anticipating the creation of an NGO for Eastern Europe. In but
a couple of years, the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee would be created.
That IACF was finished was a foregone conclusion.
Another favorite grantee was the London-based Minority Rights Group
(MRG), a tiny international NGO that was a one-man operation. On an
extremely modest budget, MRG was less an advocacy organization than a
kind of educational instrument for enlightening the international community
about the myriad ethnic, racial, and religious groups inhabiting the earth.
Its publication of studies, mainly in the form of booklets about minority
problems, was impressive, although no one could say that it seriously impacted
the various minority problems in a significant manner. Still, as the only NGO
in the business of highlighting what, for the foundation, was a burgeoning
issue, whether in the United States or elsewhere in the world, it warranted
continuing financial support.
Hardly a favorite of the foundation at the time was the International
League for the Rights of Man (later called the International League for
Human Rights). The authoritative Draft Report expressed doubt about the
league’s “capacity to achieve serious implementation of programs.”58 But
the only problem to which it referred was the league’s “severely limited
resources and staff.”59 Might this not be rectified by an infusion of funding?
The question went unanswered even though the League was recognized as
“the only international” NGO “located” in the United States, and one
that had “a close relation to the United Nations.”60 Precisely because of its
knowledge of the UN, the League might be expected “to exercise a more
penetrating and constructive influence upon the UN in the human rights
field than was believed to be possible in the early seventies.”61
The other NGOs listed by Heaps were quite small. The list included the
Writers and Scholars International, which produced the valuable journal
about and for dissenters in East Europe, Index on Censorship; the Centre for
the Study of Religion and Communism; the International Press Institute,
which the foundation had supported since 1958 with the total of grants
given until 1970 reaching $1.7 million; the International Institute on Human
Rights (based in Strasbourg, France); and, finally, several human rights
bodies associated with the official Council of Europe. Whatever was expected
from the various NGOs in Heaps list was hardly commensurate with the
scale and extent of human rights violations. Only Amnesty International had
the wherewithal and the purpose to conduct vigorous public campaigns
against abusive regimes. But this NGO had a policy of not accepting funds
except for special programs. This, of course, limited any relationship with the
prominent NGO, which in 1977 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Significantly, David Heaps’s brief biography at the foundation noted that he
was actively involved as a private member with Amnesty International. Later,
toward the end of the century, Amnesty International changed its policy
about receiving funding and the foundation would contribute grants to the
organization.
If there were limitations on what NGOs might accomplish in countering
the pandemic of human rights abuse, Heaps thought that the overall aim
of the foundation must be to target this threat. At the same time, arguments
were advanced by others as to why the foundation ought not to be involved
in the fight for human rights: were it to become involved, it could openly
jeopardize and even endanger the development programs it was pursuing.
Moreover, it was questioned, in various quarters, whether the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights could be perceived as a standard by most coun-
tries and societies.62 The bulk of the Third World countries did not even exist
in 1947–48 when the Universal Declaration was discussed and created.
While effectively set forth, these arguments were nonetheless totally rejected
by Heaps. At the core of the rejection was his basic theme that “govern-
ments which tolerate or foster injustice are likely to be equally unconcerned
about economic injustice.”63 Nor should the argument be countenanced
that concern about the rights of individuals has the narrowest of targets—
intellectuals and scholars. In fact, the “one principal germinal element over
the long pull [was] for the balanced growth of any society.” An extraordinary
admission followed: “The Foundation in its policies and actions has implic-
itly accepted this premise and has therefore emphasized the development of
institutions of higher learning and training to develop such individuals.”64
Ineluctably, then, the Ford Foundation must unhesitatingly pursue a double
objective; on the one hand, it must provide assistance to selected interna-
tional and national organizations in both developed and developing coun-
tries to aid judiciously victims of oppressive policies; and on the other hand,
it must support programs of education, public information, and research to
illuminate the burgeoning threat endangering the international intellectual
community.
Given the double objective to be pursued, the foundation was required to
embrace and support the work of the various available and interested NGOs.
Heaps did not exclude the need to create new NGOs if existing NGOs did
not measure up to the responsibility of combating human rights abusers.
In fact, this objective would be later pursued by the foundation. Besides
embracing and supporting NGOs, Heaps believed, the foundation must have
an additional responsibility: the coordination of the work of the NGOs and
the consolidation of their efforts. The perspective hardly accorded with the
reality of the competing NGOs that jealously guarded their independence.
But, as perceived in the Draft Report, t there existed “an urgent need” to
coordinate and consolidate the NGO community in order to “maximize
effectiveness.”65 While the argument was logical, it was not accompanied by
suggestions of how it was to be realized.
If explicit details on strategy were avoided, there was no such hesitancy on
budgetary proposals. The Draft Report specifically recommended an initial
allocation by the foundation of five hundred thousand dollars annually, an
amount beyond current limited institutional commitments, for human rights
purposes. The figure was not thought to be too burdensome, as it would
constitute only one-half of one percent of the 1978 foundation budget,
which totaled one hundred million dollars. Even as it represented a quite
modest sum in relation to overall foundation expenditure, it would, nonethe-
less, serve to “validate a fuller Foundation commitment to human rights.”66
Indeed, the sum would signal a major breakthrough for future human rights
activism by the foundation. At the time, however, it was only a proposal that
had to be acted upon.
Chapter 3
Fo u n d at i o n Po l i c y
ac r o s s L at i n A m e r i c a
T he Draft Report by David Heaps, along with his earlier memorandum,

may have constituted a breakthrough in Ford Foundation thinking with
respect to policy and programs. But the revolution had yet to be consum-
mated. The key staff leadership had to provide its endorsement and, just as
important, the foundation’s Board of Trustees had to accept the historic
change. From the time of its effective “human welfare” operation more than
a quarter-century earlier, the words “human rights” had not appeared in
the foundation’s annual reports nor in the traditional Presidential Reviews.
Indeed, reference to the historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights had
never appeared in official Foundation documents.
Moreover, staffers, especially in regional offices, were accustomed to the
traditional functions of grant-making in which development was stressed
and support for specifically overt human rights programming was minimal.
William Carmichael, a former top staff official of the foundation, wrote in
2001 that the proposals of Heaps stirred “considerable debate.”1 Recalling
Heaps’s remarks on the traditional need to refrain from activities that might
be viewed with disfavor by host governments, Carmichael said that “reac-
tions . . . were mixed concerning the diminution of development signifi-
cance.”2 The doubts and uncertainties about Heaps’s proposal were not
surprising given the kind of “divergent courses” that the foundation’s “over-
seas programs were then pursuing in different parts of the world.” The same
mixed reaction applied to Heaps’s “strong arguments” in favor of founda-
tion “support for human rights research and related activities” by U.S. and
Europe-based organizations.
An initial personal reaction to Heaps’s Draft Report was made by another
key foundation vice president, David Bell, head of its International Division.
It came in a short paper of “Comments” dated August 20, 1975, only days
after the Heaps monograph was completed and distributed.3 The “Comments,”
while finding the Heaps paper “challenging and persuasive,” were, nonethe-
less, significantly critical. The target of the criticism was not at all the main
thrusts of the Heaps thesis—the need to address human rights abuses and
to support organizations combating those abuses. On the latter point, Bell

emphasized that “the Foundation ought to undertake a broader and more
sustained interest than we have in the past” on those human rights NGOs
that Heaps had elaborated upon. But, in Bell’s view, the very listing of the
NGOs left much to be desired. He found the Heaps list “unduly short.”
Several NGOs that the foundation had supported, like the International
Broadcast Institute and the Institute of Race Relations in London, were not
mentioned. Nor did the list include various organizations in the field of inter-
national law that the foundation had supported, presumably including the
American Society of International Law. “What should we do about them in
the future?” Bell asked.
Moreover, if Heaps was “persuasive” in arguing that the world needed
better means for accumulating knowledge about human rights and for acquir-
ing better ideas for strengthening human rights in practice, he failed to
address the question, “how might this be done?” Should the foundation sup-
port a series of research and training centers? Or should it support research
by leading scholars in the field? Or should it underwrite the holding of inter-
national conferences on the subject? Or the preparation of publications on it?
Clearly, “operational” recommendations had not been dealt with.
Bell was also dissatisfied with the preoccupation in the Heaps paper with
international human rights organizations and their external influence on
individual countries. For a foundation with offices in numerous areas, what
should it do within countries “where human rights and intellectual freedom
are under pressure?”4 In this context, Bell wondered about what had been
learned in the various areas where the foundation had offices. How did these
offices cope with increased pressure, and what can be learned from them as
to how the foundation reacted to pressures against human rights? If the foun-
dation had successfully coped with the assault on the intellectual freedom of
social scientists in, for example, South American countries like Chile, can the
same be said about whether and how the offices defended humanists and
other intellectuals? The foundation had supported the International
t Association
for Cultural Freedom, which had dealt with assaults against those in the
humanist field, but, as the problem of abuse against humanist intellectuals
was “growing,” and given the fact that the IACF was no longer “an adequate
instrument,” what alternative if any, existed?
In Bell’s judgment, Heaps also failed to address a crucial matter of princi-
ple. In responding to attacks on intellectual freedom, should the foundation
lay its cards and concerns openly on the table? What did experience indicate
about the appropriateness of this direct approach? Clearly, Bell was less than
enthusiastic about the depth of the Heaps inquiry. Finally, Bell was also dis-
satisfied with the neglect in the Heaps paper of vital analytical inquiries, such
as an evaluation of the kind of pressures that now existed in the world against
human rights and freedom, and, more importantly, of which pressures would
be especially appropriate for the foundation to tackle. In this context, Bell
drew the “implicit conclusion”—as it was indeed what others might very
Foundation Policy Across Latin America 49
well have concluded—that the Soviet Union and China “are beyond our
reach.” Even, more sharply, and a bit caustically, Bell questioned Heaps’s over-
whelming “central attention” to political prisoners, which apparently was not
thought to be a priority of the foundation. In fact, this was the view of Heaps.
He drew much of his analysis from ICRC and Amnesty International reports.
But for Bell, this would be a much too narrow source of documentation.
The following concluding remarks by Bell illuminate his perspective: “My
own off-hand guess, for example, is that while we should help as we can with
respect to political prisoners, the natural central focus for the Foundation is
elsewhere, and our comparative advantage is more likely to be in sustained
attention to the tangled issues of free inquiry and expression.”5 The com-
ment could not have been clearer. Free inquiry and free expression were
precisely the aim of the foundation from the beginning, particularly as it sup-
ported the work of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and its successor
organization, IACF. Bell was similarly insistent that totalitarian communist
societies must not be immune from human rights criticism, although he was
in error in holding that the Soviet Union was not a target of the Heaps dis-
cussion on political prisoners. (Heaps had cited Sakharov as a source for his
observation that there were some ten thousand political prisoners in the
Soviet Union.) Political prisoners, however traumatic an assault upon free-
dom, could not be the exclusive concern of the Ford Foundation leadership.
For Bell, the next steps in the struggle for a new landmark approach
would come at a conference of the International Division scheduled for the
next month, in September 1975. Regrettably, a record of the September
meeting was either not prepared or was lost. But, judging from Carmichael’s
later comments, professionals directly involved in development programs in
Third World countries were concerned lest advocacy of human rights compro-
mise the role of foundation regional offices with their respective governments
and, therefore, lessen the priority of the foundation’s historic focus upon eco-
nomic and welfare issues, whatsoever the importance of human rights.
Apparently, too, to judge from a paper prepared by Heaps shortly after the
September meeting, participants had expressed concern about the “imposi-
tion” of Western “values” upon prevailing “ethnocentric” perceptions of Third
World countries.6 Heaps also recalled that the phrase “cultural imperialism”
was used by critics who accused his lengthy essay of justifying “intervention”
by outside elements. Whether posed in terms of preserving v ethnocentric val-
ues or resisting “cultural imperialism,” foundation representatives at the
September meeting, according to Heaps, gave emphasis to the “rights of
groups or collectivities” as “frequently” superseding the rights of individuals.
Heaps’s undated short paper was evidently inspired by a meeting he had
had with Sutton and another high foundation executive, Craufurd Goodwin.
He began his paper with reference to a “discussion” that he had recently
had with these two colleagues. That discussion prompted Heaps to prepare a
kind of outline of a new “draft report” that would assume the character of
a “revised paper.” He was intending to offer suggestions for the revision, but
at the same time, he wanted to make it clear to his colleagues that he thought
their remarks were “overly oriented toward issues of theory and conceptual-
ization.” While Heaps was prepared to recognize the differing perspectives of
local foundation officials from those at headquarters, he was quite reluctant
to accept criticism offered with vague terminology posed in purely abstract,
conceptual terms. Nor would he be willing to retreat from his principal argu-
ment about the uniqueness of the current human rights threat and, there-
fore, the need to depart from traditional foundation approaches. He was
willing to acknowledge that the foundation might have been concerned about
various human right abuses, whether “implicitly,” or, at times, “explicitly.”
Nonetheless, the issue of “political prisoners” had to be seen, he said, as
“highly significant,” and it could not be “ignored.”
Heaps took as his principal point of departure a comment made at the
September meeting by a particularly influential member of the foundation’s
Board of Trustees—Soedjatmoko. He urged that “the Foundation be true
to itself.” What precisely Soedjatmoko may have meant is not clear, but it
appears to have referred to the foundation’s liberal tradition and policy. Heaps
stated that while the problem of “political rights”—by which he meant
“political prisoners”—could not and should not be the “exclusive concern”
of the foundation, it was nonetheless “reflective of the broader issues sub-
sumed in political and fundamental rights.”7 Bell’s charge that Heaps had
neglected other rights detailed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
was not found acceptable. Bell would agree to “some reference” in the
planned foundation paper to the Universal Declaration and its “precedents”
for an “acceptable global code of conduct.”
So how then was the foundation to accommodate the Heaps perspective?
This was a key question in the Bell critique of the Heaps paper. Heaps pro-
posed that the planned November draft make a distinction between interna-
tional programs emanating from New York and programs emanating from
the field and dealing with specific country or regional problems. While Bell
appeared to urge a universal, across the board foundation approach, Heaps
sought separate approaches. On the international level of programming,
Heaps was less than precise and concrete. He said nothing about interna-
tional NGOs, a topic to which he had given so much attention in his own
Draft Report. Instead, he seized upon two ideas that had been advanced by
some NGOs, but this time he avoided using their names. One idea called
upon the foundation to “assist in developing research and documentation”
concerning human rights violations. It was Amnesty International and, to a
lesser extent, the ICRC that had advanced the idea of a common research
center that the foundation might fund. The idea, had it ever been realized,
would have evoked complications almost from the beginning due to the
competitive character of NGOs. In fact, the proposal never took on a life
of its own.
A second idea provided for assistance to “more benign or non-repressive
one-party systems” in order to protect individual or group rights. Heaps’s
statement was an awkward reformulation that, initially, had been advanced

by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) for dealing with rights
abuses in Eastern Africa. The political leaders of Tanzania and Zambia had
agreed to a conference on human rights sponsored by the ICJ. Both coun-
tries were headed by presidents who could be reelected forever, with less than
impressive records on human rights and with power overwhelmingly central-
ized. Heaps, without rejecting the idea, wondered aloud about the need for
“a study of means” to assist in realizing the objective. The following courses
of action were proposed, none of which was unique or even new: assistance
to intellectuals or scholars, including refugees; support for interdisciplinary
studies in universities; publication of an international volume on human
rights; and “building or strengthening structures or constituencies where
free inquiry could be maintained.”8 The last suggestion was so vague that it
bordered on meaninglessness. It was evident that Heaps was running out of
ideas and could not effectively respond to Bell’s queries.
But if he had little to add to his original paper, in the international dimen-
sion, he did think it advisable to advance a suggestion that might have “facil-
itated” the plan for new ideas to satisfy Bell’s questions and comments. He
urged inviting “an outside advisory group of outstanding thinkers in this
and related fields who could meet periodically to assist the Foundation.” It
turned out to be an utterly inadequate proposal that even disappointed Heaps
himself. But its inadequacy should have been anticipated. Where would these
“outstanding thinkers” come from, given the limited number of experts at
the time either in academia or in the NGO community? Toward the end of
Heaps’s short paper on what the final staff draft ought to contain in response
to the Bell memo and the September meeting, he strongly urged that his ini-
tial Draft Report analysis of NGOs be included “in the body of the docu-
ment . . . or included as an appendix.” This, of course, had been his most
distinctive reference to regional offices other than to reiterate the need to
“determine realistically the art of the possible.”
The task of preparing the report for the foundation’s trustees, a step that
would guide them to an entirely new level of policy and practice in the human
rights field, fell to the organization’s leading intellectual, Francis Sutton.
Heaps’s Draft Report would be significantly revised to take account of Bell’s
comments and the discussion of the foundation’s representatives in the fall.
But the Sutton paper would also incorporate hard intellectual analysis of the
challenges confronting the international community in the areas of concern
to the foundation, and a projection into the future of where the foundation
should move and how it was to get there. At the heart of the study, and guid-
ing it, was a philosophical outlook that reflected the liberal tradition that, for
several decades, had served as the foundation’s moral compass.
Entitled Human Rights and Intellectual Freedom, the Sutton study—which
ran seventy pages and over twenty thousand words—was released in November
1975 as an “Information Paper” designed for the foundation’s Board of
Trustees’s meeting the following month, in December. Its front page labeled
it “confidential” and “for internal use only.”9 Oddly, no author was identi-
fied on the paper, and some copies of the document in the foundation
archives actually, if mistakenly, identified the author as “Heaps.”10 Indeed, an
in-house history of the revolutionary and landmark development in Chile,
prepared by Scott Busby in December 1989, specified that the “Information
Paper” was drafted by “Heaps and Francis Sutton for the Trustees in
November 1975.”11
However, Alan Divack, the foundation’s chief archivist made it clear that
Sutton was the author of the text of the “Information Paper.” Sutton, in an
interview a dozen years later, provided further details. He was the deputy
vice-president of the foundation’s International Division and was asked by his
superior, David Bell, to prepare the paper because he was considered by Bell
a “gifted” writer. Given Bell’s critique of Heaps’s Draft Report, t that was not
too surprising, although Sutton recalled that Heaps felt that Sutton had
“muscled him aside.” At the same time, Sutton did observe that Heaps
had prepared the appendix of the “Information Paper” that focused upon
human rights NGOs.12 As noted, Heaps vigorously fought for the inclusion
of his section on NGOs either in the text or in an appendix.
The following opening sentence of Sutton’s “Information Paper” sharply
distinguished it from Heaps’s Draft Report: “The Foundation has long been
devoted to the cause of human rights and intellectual freedom.” The thrust
of the Heaps essay was precisely the opposite; Heaps argued that human
rights had never been on foundation’s radar screen, although “intellectual
freedom” had been there from the very beginning. So what was the point of
the intense staff self-examination that Sutton acknowledged had been going
on for eighteen months in “discussions” and “explorations”? The answer
would come shortly after the opening sentence as follows: “But we have not
been satisfied that we are reacting with appropriate sensitivity and well-
grounded judgment to the many disturbing situations that we encounter.”
It was not something new that the foundation was being asked to embark
upon but rather, in keeping with its tradition, it was being asked to deter-
mine what more had to be done. Sutton seemed to play down the gross
abuses that Heaps had stressed, including the great increase in the number of
political prisoners that were seized by regimes on virtually every continent.
Rather, the “Information Paper” put the issue in the mildest of ways as fol-
lows: “there is now a lively international concern with rights and freedom
that is part of the human aspirations of our time, and we would like to join
in this concern.”
What, therefore, was being sought was hardly a radical transformation in
the foundation’s policy, but rather the “seeking [of] better policy guidelines
and identifying possibilities for new or extended program actions in the
field.” The proposed change was to be perceived by no means as a radical
breakthrough but rather as a modest improvement in policy guidelines. Bell’s
critical comments on the Heaps paper had presaged the softer approach
when he wondered aloud what the foundation had been doing or not doing
to cope with the urgent abuses on the international scene. The object of both
essays was the “future,” as Bell had requested. But Sutton’s “broad guide-
lines for what we may do in [the] future” would be shaped quite differently
from that conceptualized by Heaps. They were, however, in total agreement
about one thing—the special and new attention to international NGOs
“concerned with human rights and intellectual freedom.”
Yet, while Sutton would underscore the newly-embraced importance of
international NGOs, he would insist upon linking the new thrust to what
had gone before. The proposed new policy guidelines were to be linked to
the history and nature of Ford Foundation programming. To accomplish this
linkage required a certain stretch of imagination and a fierce determination
to almost equate human rights with intellectual freedom, for the reality was
that, prior to 1973–74, the phrase “human rights” was not used by the foun-
dation. Indeed, the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been
notably absent in foundation discourse.
Fortunately, Sutton could seize upon the language of a new international
agreement to connect the older emphasis upon intellectual freedom, which
reflected cold war attitudes and concerns, with the broader issue of human
rights. The so-called Helsinki Final Act or Helsinki Accords, adopted and
signed on August 1, 1975, by all the states of Europe along with the United
States and Canada, set forth a new standard of conduct for all the states of
Europe including the communist states of the Soviet empire. That standard
specifically demanded adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, as well as to the UN’s legally-binding International Covenants on
Human Rights, which would come into force the next year, 1976.13
The Helsinki Final Act was by no means an exclusively human rights doc-
ument. In large part, it was an agreement to guarantee and make permanent
the post-war borders in Eastern Europe. It was the Soviet Union that first
advanced the idea and hoped to use the accord to protect its security and, to
a lesser extent, promote trade and scientific exchanges with the West. The
democracies of Western Europe saw the Soviet demands as an opportunity
to press for human rights. As a consequence of the bargaining process aimed
at formalizing détente and reducing cold war tensions, a “decalogue of prin-
ciples”14 in the Final Act was adopted with Principle VII calling for human
rights and fundamental freedoms, and making specific reference to the
Universal Declaration and the International Covenants. Three so-called
“Baskets”—or distinct sections of the Act—were set up to assure the appro-
priate balance to underscore détente. Basket 1 covered security, Basket 2 cov-
ered trade and exchange, and Basket 3 covered certain human rights, notably
the free movement of people and ideas, which the democracies interpreted
to mean freedom to emigrate and to travel, as well as the free expression
of ideas.
Sutton, in justifying the foundation’s updating of past concerns, singled
out several current developments, among which Basket 3 was seen as under-
scoring why “freedom and human rights seemed now to be returning as a
major subject of public concern, weighing more heavily on international affairs

f
than they have for some years.”15 Still, the Board of Trustees meeting in
December 1975 was not intended to focus upon human rights policy all over
the world; rather its primary concern was Latin America, where develop-
ments in Chile in September 1973 challenged the old and fundamental
policy of the foundation dealing with the priority of development in combat-
ing poverty in Latin America and throughout the Third World. Even as it
were to focus upon the human rights issues flowing from the military coup
in Chile, other military developments would reinforce the new concern. The
Board of Trustees, at its end-of-the-year meeting in 1975, authorized a new,
more activist human rights policy, including an unprecedented expenditure
of five hundred thousand dollars for specifically human rights purposes.
At the heart of the new policy was support of human rights NGOs. That
it would be a difficult problem in Chile was self-evident, given the ruthless-
ness of the authoritarian-military regime of Pinochet. Indeed, the Santiago
office of the foundation felt obliged to shut down and move its operation to
Lima, Peru. From there, priority had to be extended to local Chilean NGOs.
Where would they be found? Fortunately, within months of the board’s deci-
sion, an NGO appeared in Santiago that had a solid and respectable basis of
support and, at least initially, of sustenance. It was the Vicariate of Solidarity,
created as part of the Archdiocese of Santiago.
Established in 1976 as a successor to an Ecumenical Peace Committee
that had been formed immediately after the September military coup, the
Vicariate began functioning almost without delay. What had laid its founda-
tion and enabled it to engage in public, if limited, human rights activity
was the Archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez. Its principal
function, from the beginning, was to defend those arrested and detained by
the military rulers. As a respect for law remained characteristic of Chilean
and Latin American courtrooms, a certain legal window was permitted to be
open. And the fact that the central Catholic Church organ was its adminis-
trator, in a country where almost everyone was Catholic and, therefore, no
direct assault upon its institutional life would be anticipated or tolerated,
gave the Vicariate a remarkable autonomy. Strikingly, no such church-admin-
istered organization existed anywhere else in Latin America. And nothing
quite resembled it anywhere else in the world. It could be expected that the
Vicariate would become a major recipient of Ford Foundation grants.16
It must be emphasized that the foundation was aware that Cardinal Hen-
riquez was himself committed to liberal and human rights objectives. But,
equally significant was the fact that he was unusually active in dealing with
secular power, including the military authority. At the center of the Vicariate
was the Judicial Department, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez, who had
served as vice-minister of justice during the Christian Democratic administra-
tion of Eduardo Frei, which had preceded the Allende socialist regime that
Pinochet had destroyed. Gonzalez later taught labor law at the University
of Chile. His judicial department was quite large, with a permanent staff of
thirty-nine persons, including twelve lawyers and a number of social workers

and medical professionals. According to a foundation staff report, the depart-
ment was “highly regarded both within Chile and abroad.”17 In addition,
some fifty private lawyers in Santiago worked with the Vicariate on a regular
basis, but were remunerated at discount rates.
A second important Chilean NGO appeared two years after the Vicariate
was created. It was the Chilean Human Rights Commission (CHRC), which
would soon become a significant grantee of the foundation.18 According to
a later foundation staff report, the CHRC, at its founding in 1978, identified
itself as a totally secular organization, distinct from the Vicariate and com-
prised of representatives from major pre-war Chilean democratic parties—
including the Christian Democratic Party and the Socialist Party (but not the
Communist Party). The commission quite early established a tradition of
documenting abuses, but its purpose would ultimately become publicizing
information about human rights violations, both nationally and interna-
tionally, through prominent international human rights NGOs. Its reports,
whether issued monthly or annually, were to be considered accurate and,
they were therefore highly regarded as objective. Precisely because of their
accuracy, undoubtedly, a number of members of the commission’s Executive
Council and staff would be harassed and detained during Pinochet’s rule. In
the case of the Executive Council’s principal leader, Jaime Castillo, the state’s
punishment took the form of expulsion from Chile for a three-year period.
Chile, of course, was not alone in facing a serious rightist military prob-
lem and, therewith, confronting the Ford Foundation’s overseas development
and agricultural aid programs with disturbing and threatening challenges.
Three years after the Pinochet coup in Santiago, civil war broke out and inten-
sified in Argentina, which had been governed since the mid-sixties by the
military. Left-wing guerrilla forces, heretofore biding their time, were now
engaged in a major effort to confront the military regime, which in turn trig-
gered powerful right-wing forces in the Argentinean military to react with
potent weaponry, arms, and trained manpower ranging from official military
service units to the dangerous paramilitary death squads. As the conflict
spread, geographically embracing key sectors of the Argentinean community,
foundation executives in both New York and the regional office of Buenos
Aires faced once again a repeat of the traumatic challenges of 1973 in Chile.
Richard Dye, a key official in New York, joined by trustee Soedjatmoko,
journeyed to Argentina to obtain a closer view of the scene to which the
international media was giving especially prominent attention. A confidential
interoffice memo written by Dye on June 25, 1976, to William Carmichael
summarized the threat.19 Once again, for the Ford Foundation, the emerg-
ing issue centered on intellectual refugees. The trend, “from a human rights
and intellectual freedom perspective,” Dye found, “appears to be negative.”
This was an understatement and he knew it. His report showed that precisely
the refugee communities of “mostly Chileans and Uruguayans” residing in
Argentina were subjected to “growing attacks.” And, as the attacks grew
increasingly “acute,” the “plight” of foreign refugees could not but worsen.
The United Nations appealed to various countries to open their doors to
permit immigration, but the response was inevitably limited because of the
saturation of the local job markets.
That the foundation’s assistance program would be heavily burdened was
self-evident. The number of intellectuals and academics among the refugees
was considerable. Earlier grants to the Latin American Social Science Center
(CLACSO, in the Spanish lettering) to handle the Chilean academic flow
that had been arranged and funded by the foundation, Dye reported, were
“virtually exhausted,” as were the funds for “small programs” in the Southern
Cone. But the assault on the foreign refugee communities was only a seg-
ment of the overall danger. Confronted by the right-wing military threats,
Argentinean intellectuals (in addition to the foreign intellectual refugees)
were now facing a definite threat to their very existence as perceived dissi-
dents, radicals, or subversive communists.
A “growing number,” noted Dye, “have either been forced to flee the
country because of explicit or implied threats or . . . feel they must make
contingency plans.” Affected, he observed, was the agricultural economics
group in Buenos Aires, as well as the important Center for Urban and Regional
Studies. Many from these two groups were foundation grantees. The direc-
tor of the institute that housed the Center for Urban and Regional Studies,
according to Dye, was warned to leave and was advised that “he should stay
away at least for several months.”20 While thus far the number of Argentinean
intellectuals endangered was much smaller than the number in the refugee
community, their anxiety was nonetheless deepening. This was especially the
case with those who were of Jewish background. References to anti-Semitism
were rare in foundation staff reports, but once again, as in an earlier 1974
report, Dye had no hesitancy in calling attention to “an ugly outbreak of
anti-Semitism”—a periodic Argentinean phenomenon—that was “appearing
frequently in recent weeks.” Dye warned that the unfolding and disturbing
picture was certain to “severely tax” existing programs, their capacity, and
their budgets.
Of particular concern to the foundation was the unusual research center,
CLACSO—the Latin American Social Science Center—with which it had a
special relationship through a host of grants. Even though the center had
a regional character rather than being seen as exclusively national, it was
already being subjected, said Dye, to “close scrutiny by the authorities.” The
former executive secretary of the center had fled to England “after receiving
several warnings.” In addition, CLACSO was visited by “armed personnel”
to seek out “information,” and the center’s “employment exchange” records
were seized. Of special pertinence was a report of a robbery of the office of
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Buenos Aires. The taking of the
records at the UN office could be used to identify and threaten refugees.
Shortly after the robbery, a round-up of some twenty-five refugees took
place. Plans were developing for urgently relocating the academic center to
possibly Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador. The implications for the foun-
dation were certainly clear. Dye observed that CLACSO was “unlikely to be
able to play the same broad role in assisting . . . the flow of academic refugees
from Argentina as it did for Chile.” Its role in response to the Chilean mil-
itary coup and the dictatorship that followed could hardly again be repli-
cated. How the foundation would respond to the unfolding refugee crisis
remained uncertain.
Just prior to Dye sending the confidential memorandum, Soedjatmoko,
the other foundation visitor to Latin America, addressed a special meeting
of the foundation’s Latin American staff members that was designed to reveal
to them basic perspectives on intellectuals. The Indonesian trustee highlighted
and expressed deep regret about the deepening schism in Argentina and per-
haps other Latin American governments between those intellectuals who
worked as technocrats for the Argentine government and those who worked
independently and, at times, were critical of the Latin American govern-
ments. What disturbed him was the unwillingness of the latter group “to rec-
ognize the need to keep in touch across the boundaries of whether one is in
the government or opposition.”21 He believed strongly that the two intellec-
tual groupings could somehow reach an agreement with each other that
would prove beneficial to both. The failure to reach some understanding
between them was deeply regretted by Soedjatmoko and led him to blame
the failure on “the Latin American passion for intellectual absolutes.”22
This trustee’s perception of the difference was more than a bit puzzling.
In his view, it involved the conjoining of “technical competence with ethical
infantilism,” which could lead to “polarization [that] will only accelerate”
and result in the opposing parties moving onto “a pathological tangent.”23
Surely, he could not have thought that those who pursued a kind of moral or
ethical course in the social-science research institution should compro-
mise their findings to placate government bureaucrats, however intellec-
tual the latter were. And, indeed, he made it clear that the foundation’s
position “in relation to the question of human rights” in the Southern
Cone of Latin America made him “often quite proud of being part” of the
Ford Foundation.24
This pride appeared to run counter to his earlier theme about accommo-
dating government intellectual bureaucrats. But it was at this point that a
burst of realism enabled Soedjatmoko to resolve the contradiction. What
made the foundation policy ultimately effective, he said, and what enabled
the intellectual critics to hold their own independent views, was the fact that
his organization was “an American foundation, and only because [it is]
American, [and] in Latin America, [the United States] still has an overwhelm-
ing power it can apply.” But the Latin American experience could not be eas-
ily replicated anywhere else in the Third World. Elsewhere, Soedjatmoko
observed, there was “no tradition of overwhelming American power.”25
Thus, a moral posture by the intellectual who was a foundation grantee in
Latin America could scarcely be applied to Indonesia, India, or parts of
Africa. It was this reality that prompted him to welcome a harmonization of

conflicting interests among intellectuals.
When Dye raised the question with Soedjatmoko as to whether the differ-
ent types of responses by the foundation to different countries was not
more “a matter of a question of tradition” rather than a power issue, the
Indonesian held to his position. He contended that the “reluctance to move
against these [independent intellectual] groups and against the foundation, I
think, has something to do with the reluctance at angering American pub-
lic opinion and the American government and American Congress.”26 For
foundation staffers in Latin American regional offices, he said, needed to
have no hesitancy about being brutally frank. He remarked to his listeners
that Latin American governmental responsiveness to American pressure was
not to be considered surprising, “especially in the light of their needs for
military hardware, credits, and so forth.” It was a most perceptive comment.
In making this statement, Soedjatmoko found himself rethinking a posi-
tion he had taken on the Latin American budget at the trustees meeting. He
acknowledged that he had voted for cutting that budget, given, as he put
it, “the very pressing priorities in Asia and Africa.”27 Now, after traveling
throughout Latin America, he recognized that the absolutist action of mak-
ing wholesale cuts without taking account of how valuable the foundation
was seen to be in Latin America was an error in judgment. Still, he must have
been acutely aware of how the drop in price of foundation market shares
acted as a powerful restraint upon the Board of Trustee’s thinking. When
asked what the future held for Latin American activity by the foundation, he
would comment, “we can only hope that the stock market will improve to
give us some breathing space.”28
Whatever the stock market situation in the seventies—and it was not
encouraging—the foundation could not but be seized by the political situa-
tion in Argentina. One month after Richard Dye’s first confidential interof-
fice memorandum to Carmichael, he sent a second one following another
quick field visit.29 Dye was again struck by “the continued violence and ter-
ror and the fundamental political instability and uncertainty.” Not surpris-
ingly, given the xenophobia of the Argentine military, “the worst plight by
far,” Dye found, was of the non-Argentine refugees, especially those without
a legal residence. At least ten thousand persons were to be found in this cat-
egory, and they were hounded by “brutal terror and official pressure.”30 Dye
summarized the steps being taken by various governments and the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees, which was reported to be “doing what it can to
get them out.” Canada had agreed to take a thousand, and others expected
to be helpful were the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and New Zealand.
Deep concern was expressed by Dye that the United States had not indicated
as of yet a positive response. In his view, what the foundation could effec-
tively do was limited, except perhaps to arrange for “a few strategically-
placed phone calls in Washington emphasizing the need for prompt action
on a refugee parole program.”31
As for the foundation grantees, Dye found the situation “reasonably sta-
ble for the moment,” though “they are worried, even frightened.”32 Circum-
stances required him to speculate about the future. Were the situation to
worsen, and if the “demand for assistance to affected academics and intellec-
tuals grows sharply,” Dye felt it incumbent upon the foundation to provide
funding for CLACSO’s refugees as it had done for Chilean refugee intellec-
tuals in 1973. Important, too, should matters worsen, was for the founda-
tion to once again set in motion “the international placement network for
academic refugees who need relocation.” This would require, he added,
“some money” for fellowships, relocation travel, and for covering adminis-
trative costs.33
In Dye’s opinion, a key role could be played by the UN High Comm-
issioner for Refugees, should the situation worsen. He found that his pre-
liminary contacts with the UN refugee office in Buenos Aires were most
encouraging. Dye advised his mentors at foundation headquarters to be
prepared to provide some funds, as “a little money might go a long way
here.”34 The statement was an upbeat one, characteristic of a foundation
staffer’s hopefulness, despite the spread of authoritarian brutality. It was his
clear recommendation that foundation colleagues, whether in New York or
in field offices, continue with their positive approach. The option of suc-
cumbing to external terror was to be rejected. In the end, human rights
might yet prevail.
An evaluation by Nita Rous Manitzas, a staffer from the Southern Cone,
in February 1980 validated, though with considerable caution, the Dye the-
sis.35 Manitzas pointed out that the foundation, since September 1976, had
provided funding of $343,000 for activities in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay
that enabled its intellectual grantees to work or be relocated, and to sustain a
basic economic life. Of this amount, $150,000 was allocated in September
1976, supplemented by an additional $193,000 in September 1978. The
following conclusion of the review of regional office operations was summa-
rized near the beginning of the evaluation: thirteen separate projects financed
by the foundation “have been, on the whole, highly constructive.” Even in
circumstances of “prolonged repression,” it was found that the foundation
could and did “respond effectively and with relative speed and flexibility.”36
What was evident to the observer was that the foundation’s projects “have
played a significant role” in obtaining and preserving “a measure of criti-
cal, constructive, intellectual ‘space’ and dialogue in a stringently authori-
tarian setting.”37
It was apparent to Manitzas that the “still blatantly repressive” character
of military rule in the three countries continued to prevaile in 1980, even
as “the level of outright terror has certainly abated.”38 Instead of overt ter-
ror, a “more subtle process of institutionalizing a closed, authoritarian [sys-
tem] . . . has been inexorably advancing.”39 This was especially apparent in
the economy, the educational system, and indeed, “across the board.” The
foundation’s program was initially guided by two considerations, both
driven by intellectual freedom and human rights. First, through a package

of “emergency” grants, the massive flow of academic refugees who could not
safely stay in their home countries was facilitated. The second goal was aimed
at assisting the “beleaguered intellectual communities”40 that remained. The
foundation also sought to preserve the remaining pool of well-trained schol-
ars, many of whom had been expelled from their university or government
jobs. In order to preserve the pool, the process of independent intellec-
tual inquiry had to be maintained. Otherwise, the scholars would be lost to
research and its positive potential. What would result would be a “lost gen-
eration” of serious scholars and researchers.
In pursuit of these goals, grants had to be awarded to international
research centers and private research institutes, whether at home or abroad,
that might sustain significant cadres of social scientists. As an alternative,
individual scholars would be assisted in obtaining graduate training abroad.
Whatever the locale for investigatory research, the grants given under speci-
fied projects were not to be frittered away or made irrelevant by encourage-
ment of purely or partly artificial research studies. On the contrary, they were
to be made highly relevant and had to be approved by documented, written
endorsement provided by two program advisers from the foundation’s Latin
American field offices or from headquarters. In addition, an evaluation report
on the research study was to be prepared by an outside consultant who was
to be selected for his or her expertise.
The geographical breakdown of the foundation allocation, not unexpect-
edly, extended priority to Chile, where authoritarianism first struck. As of
January 1980, $207,800 went to Chilean projects, $75,000 to Argentina, and
$40,600 to Uruguay, which had also been taken over by a military coup
shortly before the Pinochet seizure of power. The expectation was that fairly
modest funds could be allocated to hold together “displaced clusters of social
scientists” that would “yield a publishable manuscript” at the termination of
foundation support. Manitzas thought that the formula used and its built-in
flexibility, while unquestionably an “experimental venture,” could produce
“a high pay-off” even if the “risk” from a scholarly viewpoint was consider-
able.41 Manitzas had no doubts that it would succeed, for it was “the will-
ingness to take such risks that has distinguished the Ford Foundation” from
other philanthropic organizations.42
Grants in the early eighties reflected a change in the new foundation pol-
icy brought about by a change in its very top professional leadership. In 1979,
McGeorge Bundy stepped down as president and was replaced by Franklin
Thomas, who had not been reared in the Boston upper-class tradition that
had a special interest in foreign policy. Instead, Thomas was a product of
middle-class New York City life where, as a black lawyer and intellectual, he
had to face and overcome discrimination and bigotry. Foreign affairs was not
his primary concern, while human rights was. Although the Bundy regime
saw a basic foundation shift from democracy-building to human rights in gen-
eral, the shift in policy-making had not yet made human rights the centerpiece
of the foundation structure. Now, during 1980–81, human rights was declared
to be one of six major programmatic themes of the foundation. Heretofore,
human rights was identified publicly as a mere sub-category of concern in
the foundation’s international work. Of course, beginning in 1973, human
rights had become a crucial element in policy discussion and strategy formu-
lation in the foundation, but as of yet without formal decisions by the lead-
ership and the Board of Trustees. The human rights focus from 1973 onward
was reflected in sudden ad hoc actions growing out of crises in Chile and later
in Argentina. What was lacking was official authoritative pronouncement and
programmatic specification.43
The formal revision of 1981 marked a major transformation. In the newly-
established organizational structure of the foundation, “human rights and
social justice” were identified as one of six major themes for future grant-
making, as well as a principal unit of the critical Program Division. The new
unit was to be paired with a second prominent theme and unit—“governance
and public policy.”44 Thomas, in his “Presidential Review” for the 1980
Annual Report, t gave emphasis to the shift as follows: “fundamental civil and
political liberties, and economic, social and cultural rights are at the center
of the Foundation’s vision of a just and humane world.”45 This core policy
consideration of the foundation had never been declared before. Thomas
went on to clarify the linkage with the old priority as follows: “in many set-
tings, work to establish or protect these [human] rights can reinforce and
complement efforts to reduce the poverty and suffering of the disadvan-
taged.”46 Thus, the new core policy became intimately tied to the initial pri-
mary motivation of the Ford Foundation in which “human welfare” had
been seen as predominant. Thomas here was echoing the penetrating obser-
vation of David Heaps that human rights was crucial to any notion of
“human welfare.”47
The issue of human rights, centrally, was reflected in the budget from
1982 onward both annually and over the long run. From 1950 through
1981, all human rights expenditures in the vital geographical area of Latin
America totaled $2,543,000, or only one percent of total program expendi-
tures in that region.48 In sharp contrast, for the year 1982 alone, the grants
for “human rights and social justice” totaled $1,330,000, or more than half
of the total expenditures for the previous thirty-one years in Latin America.
The 1982 human rights expenditure figure in Latin America constituted
twenty-four percent of the total foundation expenditures in that geographi-
cal area. During the following year, 1983, the figures soared even higher.
According to former foundation executive William Carmichael’s essay,
written in 1999 (and published in 2001), the foundation had committed
itself to expenditures of two hundred million dollars for the last quarter
of the century.49 This was his conservative estimate. Carmichael went on to
add that, during the quarter-century ending in 2001, much larger percent-
ages of the annual budget, in most instances, were made to human rights by
foundation offices in Latin America than by their counterparts in Asia and
Africa. The former foundation executive, who had played a major role in the
implementation of the organization’s Latin America policy, revealed that,
during the eighties, several foundation staffers with experience in Latin America
were reassigned to key positions in Asia and Africa, where human rights was
not considered a major part of regional office functions. The intent of this
move was to stimulate grant-making for the human rights field in those geo-
graphical areas.50
Of the (estimated) approximately two hundred million dollars the founda-
tion expended on human rights grants in all geographical areas during 1976–91,
Carmichael believed that most of the money was given to broadly-focused
human rights NGOs based in the United States, Europe, and developing
countries. But a sizable percentage was also provided to NGOs that dealt
with specifically delineated subjects and target groups. Examples would
include women’s rights, ethnic minorities, refugees, migrants, and indige-
nous people. Or, the grants might have been allocated to NGOs that focused
on specific issues, like freedom of expression, labor rights, or reproductive
rights. A fourth category of recipients was new public service law groups and
individuals in developing countries, and organizations extending such legal
services. A final category of recipients was academic research and university-
academic centers designed to train human rights specialists or others who
might wish to examine aspects of international law.
Examination of the foundation’s Lima, Peru, budget provided an insight
into specifically its Latin American priorities. Lima, after the military coup
in Chile brought about the closing of the Santiago office, became a major
source of operation for the Southern Cone and Andean region. Not surpris-
ingly, given the ongoing human rights abuses in the region, generally the
largest portion of the Lima budget (fifty-five percent) was committed to
the defense of and promotion of civil and political rights. With the area expe-
riencing a large number of cases involving arbitrary detention, torture, and
disappearances, the huge expenditure was hardly unexpected.
With the foundation’s new stress on civil and political rights beginning in
the late seventies, it was logical that, on the local level, legal services would
come to occupy a central role. It was understood, of course, that the purpose
was “to use the legal system to bring about social change.”51 Ordinary per-
sons would now be provided with legal information that, heretofore, was
only available to the affluent. Law would be used to affect the implementa-
tion of social entitlement programs and to help the disenfranchised partici-
pate in these programs. Promoting respect for the rule of law stood at the
heart of the foundation’s purpose, internationally and locally. As always,
special attention would be placed upon the needs of poor women and disad-
vantaged ethnic-racial groups.
In addition to the Lima office, another Latin American foundation field
office, which had not been very much involved in civil and political liberties
before this time, would begin devoting greater attention to human rights.
The Mexico City office, beginning in the early 1980s, shifted its priority
concern to “human rights and social justice” in keeping with the Ford
Foundation’s international policy.52 That naturally followed from the fact

that Central America was considered part of the Mexico City office jurisdic-
tion, and that area was confronted with a severe worsening of its human
rights situation. In Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, tor-
ture and massive killings had become endemic, especially since 1984.53 In
focusing upon these growing and terrifying concerns, the Mexico office now
gave priority to providing support to groups researching and monitoring
the massive killings and similar human rights abuses. A second objective was
to promote public education on human rights abuses. Women’s rights was a
special priority of the Mexico City office, as it was throughout the founda-
tion’s programs. But this issue took on a sharper and more intense form
when the subject became applicable to the Central American region where
women held a lower, or “second class,” citizenship that carried particularly
harsh ramifications.
Even before basic civil liberties, with their primary focus on legal services,
were to become a primary concern of the foundation, its Brazilian regional
office was plagued by particularly brutal examples of human rights abuses. In
the mid-seventies, it had been inescapably burdened with the consequences
of military brutalities in the Southern Cone since it served as an escape cen-
ter for academics and researchers fleeing Chile and later Argentina. In Brazil
itself, the so-called “abertura”—political opening—for disadvantaged groups
to mobilize on behalf of their own needs had entered the political agenda.
Legal services served as a major leveraging device, particularly as they related
to organizational empowerment projects. The projects varied in nature and
scope, embracing such distinct groups as women, Afro-Brazilians—a cate-
gory not available elsewhere in Latin America—indigenous groups mainly in
forest areas, and the poor. It was the object of the Brazil office, in applying
legal services, to support community groups and intermediary organizations
representing the various distinctive categories.54 If the initial priority of the
Brazilian office was economic and social rights, later, even without the emer-
gence of police violence, torture, and political assassinations, the regional
office moved toward the program of advancing civil and political liberties.
As noted, it was local human rights NGOs that served as the base of the
Ford Foundation’s operation in Latin America. NGOs within the area serv-
iced by the foundation’s regional offices and funded by them kept human
rights alive when repression descended upon the Southern Cone. However,
the foundation did not operate alone in locating the NGOs and relating to
them. While well-informed staffers at the regional offices provided valuable
documentation about and to the NGOs, the regional offices themselves or
the foundation headquarters would recruit at times very knowledgeable
specialists from academia to pursue detailed investigations that were then
made available to the staff. Their reports would provide invaluable source
material that could not easily be replicated.
Characteristic of these reports was a study prepared by Professor Margaret
Crahan of Occidental College following a detailed tour she made to Chile,
Argentina, and Peru during a two-week period in November 1982. She was
remarkably well-versed on the three areas and extremely knowledgeable about

the subject she was investigating. She shared her fifty-page study, “Human
Rights in Latin America,” with William S. Saint, the key figure in the Lima
office, who then sent it on to William Carmichael via Jeffrey Puryear. The
report was intended to keep the key people within the Latin American
“loop” fully informed on the subject. But it went well beyond this objective.
So impressive was the report that Saint called it “a genuine tour de force on
human rights issues in the region.” In Saint’s judgment, it was “substantive,
analytical and full of provocative observations.”55
The conclusion reached by the “consultant,” as Prof. Crahan was identi-
fied, was rich in both observations and recommendations. She found that
the “most notorious human rights violations have declined in Chile and
Argentina.” Nonetheless, in these two military regimes, “the mechanisms of
repression remain in place” requiring, therefore, that both “the legal defense
of rights and the publicizing of violations” continue to be strongly supported
by the foundation.56 Crahan was even more tough-minded than this stand-
pat proposal indicated. In her view, “much more attention has to be paid to
the stimulation and funding of studies on specific reforms for judicial and
political structures.” It was her judgment that an increased focus on reforms
was essential “to create greater barriers to state repression.” The final com-
ment suggested that she anticipated the collapse of the two military regimes
and was proposing methods for precluding their reappearance. She warned
against permitting a “culture of fear” to once again take hold and, in this
context, she urged “the promotion of research and networking” concerning
the “culture” of repression in order to prevent its resuscitation.
A final comment by Professor Crahan carried a foreboding about the
immediate future in Peru, a country whose institutions she had perceptively
studied and found seriously wanting. Earlier in her paper, she had warned
that the situation there was “more critical than in Chile and Argentina and
could rival the crisis in Chile from 1974–75 or Argentina in 1976–79.”57 She
proved to be correct in anticipating the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori in
Peru. She had no hesitancy in advising the Ford Foundation to engage
in “greater preparedness for a human rights crisis in Peru.”
It was clear that Professor Crahan was a great admirer of local NGOs
in Chile and Argentina. Her concluding remarks called upon the foundation
“to continue substantial support” to the Vicariate, the Chilean Human
Rights Commission, the Academy of Christian Humanism—groups all located
in Chile—and to the Center for Legal and Social Studies in Argentina. But
even prior to her strong recommendations about NGOs, the Latin American
specialist had completed a twenty-page survey of each NGO that could not
fail to impress other specialists.58 About a dozen NGOs in Chile were care-
fully evaluated, their strengths and weaknesses weighed, and their future
impact prognosticated. Examining each on an alphabetical basis (in the
Spanish language), the author selected three for the concluding paragraph
that had a specific appeal to the foundation. What was singled out about the
Academy of Christian Humanism, however, was especially intriguing. This

group was preparing syllabi for six separate academic human rights courses,
and she found that those involved in the syllabus preparation were “the most
exciting group.” While she had no “specific proposal” to offer the founda-
tion for consideration, she strongly recommended that “they should be
encouraged to submit one or more” projects, as they served valuable educa-
tional purposes.
The Chilean Human Rights Commission had already sent in a proposal to
the foundation that Crahan had been asked to evaluate. Here, she offered
general comments. Unlike her findings about the Vicariate or the academy,
she considered that the commission “serves as a clearing house for informa-
tion” and, at the same time, acts as an instrument for bringing together lead-
ers from various sectors of society. Therefore, in being more “politically
diverse” than the other two Chilean groups, it has become “a model of a
multi-class non-partisan rights organization.” Even if its strength, unlike the
Vicariate, did not lay in publicizing human rights violations, it had, “together
with Vicariate, the most credibility and the greatest political impact nation-
ally and internationally.”
Professor Crahan recommended that the commission be “encouraged,”
presumably through grants and otherwise by the foundation, so that, even-
tually, it could “facilitate the transition to a civilian government.” This could
not be the task, she thought, of a church-based organization, like the Vicariate.
She concluded, rather presciently— it was only 1983, after all—that “over the
long term the Commission has perhaps more potential for impact in promot-
ing the return to the rule of law and civilian government.” In consequence,
she concluded that she “strongly” supported assistance to the commission.
The Vicariate, a creation of Chile’s liberal Catholic Church, had already
acquired a reputation internationally. But Professor Crahan could not keep
from lauding it as “the core of the human rights movement in Chile.” In fact,
she noted that its impact had gone well beyond Chile: “Vicariate has served
as a model for effective denunciations of violations, mobilization of public
opinion and dissemination of data via the international press.” But beyond
its media efforts and the shaping of pubic opinion, its “most important on-
going work is their court work together with [its] research on legal issues.”
For some time, the foundation had accorded recognition to the value of its
legal initiatives and breakthroughs. And, of course, no issue was more impor-
tant to the organization than attention to legal issues and the rule of law as a
defense for human rights.
Argentina was already a step ahead of Chile by late 1982 in moving to
civilian government. The Falklands War against Great Britain by the Argentine
military rulers and the devastating defeat of the Argentinean navy in that year
virtually demolished the status of the military chiefs who occupied the seats
of power in Buenos Aires. With the demolition of its heroic military image,
the country’s transition to civilian rule was all but certain. Yet Professor
Crahan was hardly optimistic about significant progress in the human rights
field in Argentina “unless institutionalizing the protection of human rights is

consciously focused on in the next few months and thereafter.”59 She was
acutely aware of how human rights had fared under civilian governments in
Argentina, and, therefore, positive expectations were hardly warranted. This
prompted her, not surprisingly, to urge the foundation to provide “strong
support” to those organizations seeking to reform the government, espe-
cially the judicial system. Keenly aware of the foundation’s orientation, she
observed that “funding should capitalize [on] maintaining and expanding
resources for the legal defense of rights” as well as the creation of mecha-
nisms for promoting “the rule of law and political participation.” Special
attention was given to the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), headed
by the well-known democratic activist, Emilio Mignone.
It was the center, Crahan wrote, that was “doing the most important
human rights legal work . . . and is highly effective.” She went on to note that
CELS had documented and publicized human rights violations, especially
the infamous disappearance of 6,500 Argentineans. It had effectively selected
test cases in order to illuminate whether the court system would be true to
its purpose. And CELS published studies on general legal questions and had
given extensive attention to the enormously pressing problem of the “disap-
peared.” At the same time, it had vigorously sought out writs of habeas cor-
pus and strongly defended political prisoners. Because Professor Crahan did
not believe that the emerging civilian government could be anything other
than “weak,” it was critical to promote “the development of legal and polit-
ical forums . . . [for] rights in the future.” It was in this highly legalistic con-
text that she recommended that the foundation provide funding that
“should emphasize institutional” elements, especially involved with “legal and
related research activities.” She said that she had already spelled out to the
foundation “specific recommendations” in a December 10, 1982, memo.
Legal concerns were not Professor Crahan’s exclusive interest. She com-
mented and offered suggestions on a half-dozen other Argentine NGOs. None
received as much attention as the famed Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
whose weekly demonstrations in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires had
helped arouse the conscience of the democratic world. As the professor accu-
rately noted, the “Mothers” “have had a major impact on Argentina and
[upon] international consciousness and [they] serve as a moral barometer of
changes in the human rights situation.” While they focussed upon the “dis-
appeared,” they also have been especially attentive to the impact of repres-
sion on the families of the “disappeared.” Indeed, the “Mothers” had set up
a fund for the education of the children of the “disappeared.”
Given the dynamism of the “Mothers” group, Professor Crahan correctly
anticipated that they would not “fade away” after the return to civilian gov-
ernment. Interestingly, she sought to figure out some way that the founda-
tion might prove helpful to the organization even if it did not “fall within the
guidelines for funding.” She offered the recommendation that the founda-
tion seek out ongoing “other sources” to help the “Mothers,” including,
specifically, European church sources to provide funds for the education of

the children of the “disappeared.” The extent to which her recommenda-
tions were followed by the foundation is not known, but to judge from the
enthusiasm her report received from a top official, William Saint, it was
certain to fall on sympathetic ears. The recipients of Saint’s covering memo,
Jeffrey Puryear and William Carmichael, if anything, were deeply interested
in and concerned about human rights in the Southern Cone.
Professor Crahan’s survey, with its special focus on local NGOs, was the
culmination of the foundation’s shift in its human rights policy flowing from
the Pinochet military coup of September 1973. If the immediate objective
of the foundation was the quick rescue of civilian academics and intellectuals,
many of whom were grantees of its overseas development program, the long-
term aim was to vigorously fund local groups in defense of human rights. In
an internal study produced in the early nineties, Margo Picken, a leading pro-
gram officer on human rights in the foundation, highlighted the impact that
the ruthless repression in Latin America during the early and mid-seventies
had had upon the foundation. She emphasized that foundation executives had
become “concerned about mounting threats to life and liberty, pervasive dis-
crimination based on race and creed, and the cruel treatment meted out to
ethnic minorities and indigenous people in many parts of the globe; and the
widespread suppression of intellectual freedom and the free exchange of
ideas and information.”60
Picken, who had had access to the Ford Foundation’s internal discussions
and archives, observed that the foundation had “realized that the effective-
ness of its development assistance programs was severely impaired in places
where governments were engaged in a pattern of massive repression and dis-
regarded the basic rights of their citizens in violation of their own and inter-
national law.”61 A fundamental change in the priorities of regional offices, at
least in Latin America, had taken place. Until the mid-seventies, the very lim-
ited human rights grants, such as assistance to legal services or funds to sup-
port the independent media’s covering of human rights issues, according to
Picken, were perceived as an act that “complemented [the] work on issues of
poverty and inequity,” which, of course, was intertwined with “development
assistance and international economic areas.”
The extraordinary transformation of Ford Foundation policy was already
made clear. The centerpiece of the transformation was an unusual and dis-
tinctive group of local human rights NGOs, especially in Chile. Their fairly
sudden appearance provided the foundation with an indispensable channel
that made its new policy realizable. But the local organizations were only one
side of the required equation. What would bolster the work of local NGOs,
and give them invaluable and powerful political support, would be the active
involvement of international human rights NGOs. It would be the interna-
tional NGOs that would carry the burden of the following critical foun-
dation objective: “to strengthen the understanding and appreciation of
international human rights law.” The point was at the heart of President
Franklin Thomas’s comments in the 1980 Annual Report of the Ford

Foundation. In his “review,” he emphasized, referring to the foundation that
“we will support institutional arrangements most likely to sustain pluralism
and safeguard minority rights.” It was a basic statement of democracy that
had stood at the intellectual heart of the foundation from the beginning.
Chapter 4
Th e “H u m a n R i g h ts L o b by ”
W hile the core of the struggle for human rights ineluctably rested at local
levels, upon NGOs, in such areas they could not but operate with diffi-
culty in authoritarian societies. If, in Chile, some might be protected by the
Catholic Church, this might not be the case in other authoritarian places. But
their ability to function effectively, over the long run, was severely limited.
Of critical importance was whether and how the international community
would offer and provide a modicum of protective assistance to prevent the
military regimes from imposing evermore repressive measures and, perhaps,
even encouraging those regimes to embrace some modest, if limited, reforms.
Impacting international public opinion would come to be seen as essential, if
only to assure local NGOs, as well as the democratically-oriented citizenry, of
a certain support and encouragement.
The Ford Foundation was keenly aware of the need to affect world opin-
ion so that it could be exerted as defensively instrumental on behalf of the
embattled human rights local NGOs. Margo Picken, in her internal history
of the foundation, pointed out that the transcendent importance of human
rights as compared with anti-poverty development programs in Third World
areas had to be central to “policy-making.”1 Ford Foundation President Franklin
Thomas, in his 1980 annual report, made explicit how the organization
understood the interrelationship of international NGOs with local NGOs. He
wrote, “[while] we will support local organizations that are active in various
countries in the defense of individual rights,” these NGOs would be backed
up by regional and international organizations and, in this way, “we will aim
to strengthen the understanding and appreciation of international human
rights law.”2 The provisions of the latter quote were, of course, a specialty of
international NGOs.
In dealing with Latin American countries and with the human rights
abuses of their rulers, NGOs would inevitably have to focus upon the United
States. It was only the United States that exercised the economic and military
influence that could affect the policy of Latin American regimes. With respect
to trade, for example, almost half of the exports made by the United States to
developing countries went to Latin America. A Ford Foundation report in
1997 stated that the United States was “the region’s most important external
factor.”3 It noted, too, that the United States had “the largest voice in shap-
ing the policies of multilateral institutions in the hemisphere such as the W
World
Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.” In addition, the United
States was a heavy supplier of military goods for Latin American armies and,
indeed, provided their officers with advanced training. Cuba was an excep-
tion, with the USSR playing a crucial role following the Fidel Castro seizure
of power in the late fifties.
Even as the Ford Foundation had turned to human rights considerations
in 1973–74 in dealing with Latin America, by a striking coincidence, human
rights emerged as a critical concern during precisely those years in the U.S.
Congress, specifically in the House of Representatives. In March 1974,
an extraordinary document was published by a congressional subcommittee
that soon would have a very significant and, to an extent, revolutionary
impact upon U.S. policy in the area of international human rights. Entitled
“Human Rights in the World Community: A Call for U.S. Leadership,” the
report was prepared by a panel of the influential House of Representatives
Foreign Affairs Committee. Its Subcommittee on International Organizations
and Movements, headed by Congressman Donald M. Fraser (a Democrat
from Minnesota), held unprecedented hearings on U.S. human rights policy;
a total of fifteen hearings with over forty witnesses were held between August
1 and December 7, 1973. As some of the most important congressmen sat
on the subcommittee and its parent body, the report was certain to attract atten-
tion. Notably unusual was the phrase in its title, “Call for U.S. Leadership.” It
reflected an angry rejection of the Nixon administration policy, of which
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger was a principal architect, and a demand
for a radically new orientation in American policy.4
Early on, the congressional report took aim at its administration target
as follows: “The human rights factor is not accorded the high priority it
deserves in our country’s policy.” The rebuke then became sharper: “Too
often, it [human rights] becomes invisible on the vast foreign policy horizon
of political, economic and military affairs.” Referring indirectly, but clearly,
to the secretary of state, the report noted, “proponents of pure power poli-
tics too often dismiss it [human rights] as a factor in diplomacy.” This
disregard for human rights was bitterly denounced as harmful to America’s
interests and image in the world as follows: “The prevailing attitude has led
the United States into embracing governments which practice torture and,
unabashedly, violate almost every human rights guarantee pronounced by
the world community.”5
A striking feature of the subcommittee’s report was the attention it gave
to the role of nongovernmental organizations. Especially stunning was the
appreciation rendered by Chairman Fraser in the report’s Preface to a staffer,
John Salzberg, who was said to be “indispensable” by bringing to the hear-
ings and the report “the special expertise” of “practical experience in the
field.” Salzberg earlier had served as the UN representative of the Geneva-
based International Commission of Jurists, a point emphasized by Congressman
The “Human Rights Lobby” 71
Fraser. International NGOs were praised in the report as “a vital contributor

to the international protection of human rights.”6 An entire section was
devoted to lauding their independence and objectivity and to providing a
description of how Amnesty International, in particular, functioned.
Significantly, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), based in
Geneva, was a major grantee of the Ford Foundation.
Congressional irritation with Kissinger’s indifference to human rights
issues and, at times, his actual or seeming support of military dictatorships—
whether in Latin America, South Korea, or the Philippines—fed a growing
revolt. It initially had been spurred by American policy toward Vietnam,
which was perceived as cynical and immoral, supportive of only a corrupt
military regime in Saigon. The Watergate scandal aggravated the executive-
congressional confrontation, with Congress increasingly prepared to chal-
lenge the “imperial presidency,” including the foreign affairs area, traditionally
regarded as the prerogative of the executive.
The Foreign Assistance Act of 1973, especially Section 32, pressed by
Congressman Fraser, broke new ground. For the very first time, U.S. legisla-
tion declared, “it is the sense of Congress that the President should deny any
economic or military assistance to the government of any foreign country
which practices the internment or imprisonment of that country’s citizens for
political purposes.” Fraser’s subcommittee, in its “Call for U.S. Leadership,”
specified in its formal recommendation that the State Department should
withdraw “military assistance and sales” along with certain “economic assis-
tance programs” from “governments which are committing serious viola-
tions of human rights.”7 The new Foreign Assistance Act was designed to
formalize the “call for U.S. leadership” and provide it with a statutory
legitimization.
In September 1974, Fraser sent Kissinger a letter signed by 105 members
of Congress warning that their support for legislation extending foreign aid
would be affected by the degree to which State Department policy displayed
concern for human rights in recipient countries. The warning was formal-
ized in legislation enacted as Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act.
It required the president, except in “extraordinary circumstances,” to “sub-
stantially reduce or terminate security assistance to any government which
engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recog-
nized human rights.”
Angered by the dilatory tactics of Kissinger regarding the security assis-
tance legislation, and concerned about growing atrocities in Chile, Congress
moved to new levels of human rights legislation. Economic assistance by the
United States, too, like security assistance, would now be conditioned by the
recipient government adhering to basic human rights standards. Freshman
Congressman Tom Harkin (a Democrat from Iowa) won support for legisla-
tion denying economic assistance to any country that consistently violated
internationally recognized human rights. The amendment was identified as
Section 116 of the International Development and Food Assistance Act.
The assault upon traditional executive prerogatives continued into 1976

with the adoption of Section 301 of the International Security Assistance and
Arms Export Control Act. In keeping with the recommendation of the “call
for U.S. leadership” but now extending it, the legislation established within
the State Department the position of coordinator of human rights. The new
statute also required the secretary of state to submit reports every year on the
human rights practices of each country that the department wished to be a
recipient of security assistance. At the same time, the State Department was
warned that, were the reports not satisfactory nor submitted within thirty
days, Congress could reduce or end security assistance to a particular human
rights violator by adoption of a joint resolution. Congressional toughness in
the human rights field was also shown in 1976 with respect to international
regional lending institutions in which the United States was represented.
New specific legislation obliged the U.S. executive directors at the Inter-
American Development Bank and the African Development Fund to vote
against loans to governments that engaged in gross violations of human
rights. Such action could kill the request for a loan. Later, it would be extended
to other international lending institutions.
It was no accident that NGOs played a central role in the adoption by the
Congress of the unprecedented international human rights legislation. How
they functioned was disclosed and detailed by a key State Department offi-
cial, Sandy Vogelgesang, whose study, funded by a grant from the Council
on Foreign Relations, closely examined U.S. human rights policy. She found
that the “human rights lobby” in Washington, comprising representatives
of a number of religious groups, labor unions, and international NGOs,
was “often . . . a decisive factor propelling” human rights developments in
Washington.8 From a mere handful of groups in the early 1970s, the “lobby”
grew to about 50 organizations, who exercised “considerable clout,” accord-
ing to Vogelgesang. One legislator called them a “dogged bank of human
righters” who packed considerable importance. Several represented relig-
ious groups.
Particularly singled out was the Washington Office on Latin America
(WOLA), headed at the time by Joseph Eldridge. An offshoot of the Nat-
ional Council of Churches, WOLA, with a small staff, nonetheless was able
to provide the principal witnesses and documents for congressional hearings
and assisted Congressman Tom Harkin in drafting much of his legislation.9
Eldridge, a Methodist minister, had served on church missions to help the
poor in Latin America, but in September 1974, he returned from Chile.
WOLA had been created that year by “a broad coalition of religious leaders
and academics,” as later described by a Ford Foundation interoffice memo-
randum.10 Eldridge would disclose several years later how he had “con-
spired” with John Salzberg to “recommend witnesses” to the Fraser
subcommittee.11 His lobbying turned out to be crucial. A scholarly analysis
of a key human rights amendment of 1975 revealed that Eldridge, together
with an NGO colleague, actually prepared the “first draft” of the bill.12 The
same analyst concluded that WOLA and the other NGOs had played crucial
roles in raising the “saliency of human rights issues.”
That the Ford Foundation would find WOLA to be an especially useful
NGO for advancing human rights in Latin America could be anticipated
once President Thomas in 1980 indicated the value of international or regional
NGOs in complementing the role of local human rights NGOs. In the same
year, the principal foundation staffer on human rights, Bruce Bushey,
explained why WOLA should be given an eighteen thousand dollar grant for
a twelve-month period beginning in September. Bushey’s interoffice memo-
randum, dated July 28, 1980 and addressed to Vice-President Sutton, called
WOLA “one of the country’s leading sources of information and political
analysis on human rights situations in Latin America.”13
The memorandum went on to observe that WOLA was “unique” in its
access to primary source materials dealing with human rights in Latin America.
This uniqueness was reported to be a “result of well-established credibility”
in “political and religious circles” of Latin America. Rarely did an NGO win
such powerful endorsement by a foundation staffer. In his concluding para-
graph, he wrote,
In my opinion, the Washington Office on Latin America is one of the half-

dozen most important human rights groups and I believe this grant will be
among the wiser investments of Foundation funds that I have had the oppor-
tunity to recommend during my tenure as the Foundation’s Program Officer
dealing with human rights.14
Elsewhere in his comments, he wrote, “[WOLA] has a reputation as the

most effective human rights organization operating in Washington, D.C.” A
more enthusiastic recommendation would be difficult to find.
What impressed Bushey and the foundation was the extraordinary dedica-
tion of WOLA’s obviously idealistic staff, described in the memorandum as
“exceptional.” All six of its program officers were reported to have had
“extensive experience” living in the Latin American countries they moni-
tored. So strongly were they committed to human rights, noted Bushey, that
they took “minimal salaries.” The figures given in the memo were stagger-
ingly low. In the memorandum’s thumb-nail sketch of the NGO, Bushey
described that WOLA, after accumulating its data from mainly religious
centers in Latin American countries, then transferred the valuable data and
information to religious organizations in the United States, as well as to pro-
fessional, civic, and political groups. Among the recipients were members of
Congress, their staffs, and appropriate policy-makers in the State Department.
In Bushey’s view, WOLA was “the Capitol’s clearinghouse on information”
related to human rights violations in Latin America.
Of particular importance in WOLA’s “clearinghouse” role was its publica-
tion, Update, which was distributed to several thousand individuals, includ-
ing people involved with other NGOs, academics, officials on every level of
government, and those serving in some official capacity with religious bodies,
mainly Protestant. In addition, some four hundred copies were sent to Latin
America, specifically to key outposts on human rights issues and sources
of its documentation. Bushey reported that his friends in major NGOs—
Amnesty International, the International League for Human Rights, and the
International Human Rights Law Group—considered Update “an important
guide” in their decision-making process when they dealt with “atrocities in
Latin America.”15
The modest grant to WOLA was to enable it to perform three objectives
that it had presented to the foundation. The first involved a “domestic out-
reach” program, enabling its staffers to travel to various regions of the
United States and to meet with local religious groups whose national offices
were the principal funders of WOLA. In their travels, staffers, like Eldridge,
would also seek to meet with other religious bodies that might become
activists on behalf of WOLA concerns and programs. At the same time, the
new groups could become potential funders of WOLA. A second objec-
tive was to advise and prepare for local groups a special new issue of Update
that would offer, in an in-depth manner, a focus upon particularly Argentina
and Guatemala and also upon U.S. policy toward these two countries where
human rights violations were common.
In several Latin American areas, such as Brazil and the Caribbean, WOLA’s
contacts were either minimal or nonexistent. To respond to this vacuum, the
third objective of the grant would enable WOLA staff members to travel to
these areas in Latin America. They would establish contacts with groups
in these areas and, in addition, strengthen contacts that had already been
established with local religious groups. “Networking” was the term used by
WOLA, and it was designed to encompass human rights groups and research
centers. As expected, the “networking” process would enable Update to
acquire new sources of documentation as well as readers.
That the grant was but the beginning of a close relationship between the
foundation and WOLA would soon become evident. On September 15, 1983,
the formal recommendation was made to President Thomas that a new grant
totaling $220,000 for a two-year period be awarded to WOLA, a huge jump
over the initial allocation.16 This time, the recommendation was made by
two foundation vice-presidents, Susan Berresford and William Carmichael.
Clearly, satisfaction with the early work of WOLA ran high.17 In evaluating
WOLA’s efforts, foundation staffers took special account of the “consider-
able difficulty” it worked under to “combat . . . [political] conditions” pre-
vailing in the Southern Cone and in Central America. The authoritarian
regimes and military dictatorships made resistance to oppression problematic
at best. Widespread human rights violations, reinforced by significant restric-
tions on free expression and political rights, precluded vigorous public initia-
tives. The most tormented of repressive forms, like torture, disappearances,
and summary executions, enjoyed a brutal dominance.
Nonetheless, local NGOs, like the Vicariate in Chile, were functioning
and becoming stronger, and some social-science research centers were already
able to pose issues and raise public concerns. In Argentina, an activist democ-
racy was re-emerging after 1983, and elsewhere, encouraging steps were
being taken to remove the most virulent of repressive regimes. In this con-
text, foundation staffers were impressed with “effective initiatives in support
of human rights” undertaken by WOLA. Among the assets, foundation staffers
noted WOLA’s “highly-committed staff” and its “strong reputation” as a
“reliable source” of accurate and timely information concerning human
rights and governance issues. Of special importance, WOLA was reported to
have “reached out to make solid contacts” with a variety of Latin American
human rights organizations.
Significantly, WOLA was found to have taken advantage of the recent, if
limited, progress in the area of human rights to begin “monitoring and
promoting democratic and pluralistic forces.”18 If details were not disclosed,
foundation staffers had no hesitancy in revealing and in praising how
WOLA’s impressive information program worked. Routinely, it provided
Congress, the State Department, and the White House with documentary
information on human rights developments and the new recent progress in
democratic initiatives. At the same time, WOLA was portrayed as a store-
house of documentation to all human rights organizations and to visitors to
Latin America.
The critical information function had deepened through luncheon semi-
nars, publications, and frequent conferences that WOLA organized. In atten-
dance were congressional staffers, State Department officials, journalists,
academics, and leaders of other human rights groups. Whether at luncheon
seminars or at conferences, the organization, through its contact with key
institutions in Latin America, could and did provide platforms for major
continent-wide or local institutions dealing with human rights. The informa-
tion was bolstered by its invaluable newsletter, Update, now with a regular
circulation of over six thousand. At the same time, organizations in virtually
every country of the region had come to “rely on WOLA for information
regarding the implications of political events in the United States for human
rights in Latin America.”19
That the latter information was of critical importance to local groups in
Latin America cannot be overemphasized. Foundation staffers found that its
documentation “considerably facilitated the work of these groups” inasmuch
as “no other organization” provided such services. This service was aug-
mented by a distinctive function that staffers emphasized. It was found to be
necessary to explain to the various local groups and individuals in Latin
America who were interested in human rights and democracy but were lack-
ing personal contacts with American officials and institutions. Their aim
was to help Latin Americans understand the complexity of the U.S. political
process. In this way, “struggling” rights groups, trade union leaders, and
politicians with democratic political agendas would be “able more easily
and more comprehensively to present their concerns to a U.S. audience.”
The contracting function was hardly an academic exercise. During 1983,

WOLA set up appointments for a top trade union leader of Venezuela with
U.S. congressmen. It also set up appointments for visiting members of
the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina seeking help for “disap-
peared” family members as well as for groups of Catholic bishops from Chile
and Brazil, and for a delegation from the Latin America Council of Churches.
Even a delegation of twenty representatives of the Brazilian National Congress
sought out WOLA for assistance in reaching contacts in Washington, DC.
There was yet another function that WOLA had assumed—an “advocacy”
role—with international and regional human rights institutions. It pro-
vided documentation on human rights violations to the UN Human Rights
Commission in Geneva and to the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC. In
providing information on human rights abuses, WOLA also urged these
bodies to make formal inquiries about a particular country’s violations of
human rights standards. A significant result came from the OAS Commission,
which investigated and, in turn, issued “powerful reports” on Uruguay and
Paraguay.20
The fact that WOLA was situated in Washington enabled it to have a
close link to the OAS body that was based there. In addition, the location
permitted it to approach and raise pertinent human rights issues with the
Washington embassies of Latin American regimes. In 1983, it organized and
led a delegation of religious and academic groups to meet with the Uruguayan
ambassador about his government’s promise to restore the democratic gov-
ernment, which had remained unfulfilled. On another occasion, it arranged
for a group of Chilean exiles seeking permission to return to their homeland
to meet with Chilean embassy officials.
As the harsh repression of the seventies began to diminish, foundation
staffers welcomed WOLA’s plan to engage “in the promotion of human
rights and democratic processes.” In that context, the foundation found the
enlarged WOLA staff, now numbering eleven full-time employees as com-
pared with six in 1980, to be especially impressive in their high degree of
training in and about Latin America, as well as in being skilled professional
promoters. There was no reluctance to provide the group with a grant over
ten times greater than the earlier grant. Indeed, so effective had WOLA
become that its total annual budget had increased to some three hundred
thousand dollars, so that the foundation grant would constitute only a third
of its budget. A network of approximately forty religious organizations along
with small foundation and individual grants picked up two-thirds of the budg-
etary items.21 WOLA’s value was later found to be especially significant. A
two-year grant awarded at almost the end of the century stated that WOLA,
“with Foundation support, played an important role in all major U.S. policy
debates about human rights and democratic development in Latin America.”22
The amount allocated was almost three times greater than that awarded from
1983 until 1984, the figure jumping from $220,000 to six hundred thou-
sand dollars. This constituted a great tribute to WOLA’s work.
Among the attributes of WOLA, nothing was said about any impact it had
upon American public opinion. Press and other media reportage about its
activities were notably absent. WOLA’s strong points did not encompass media
coverage. Nor did the foundation grant make any claim that the NGO had
wrought a change in policy, whether in Washington or in practice in the
authoritarian regimes in Latin America. Of course, these two features
were related, if not interwoven. How could change in policy take place
without public opinion in the United States being aroused by conditions
of repression?
That these questions would come to affect foundation thinking about the
kind of NGO urgently needed to cope with the human rights problems of
Latin America was self-evident. What ineluctably highlighted the issue was
the coming to power in January 1981 of Ronald Reagan as president of the
United States. Human rights concerns in Latin America were not registered
in his campaign and programs. Indeed, his initial appointment of the top
government official to deal with human rights was a person who appeared
to be opposed to the use of human rights as a government instrument. The
appointment, which required ratification by the Senate, turned into a burden-
some embarrassment when a prominent victim of Argentine repression,
Jacobo Timerman, who had been brutally tortured by the military rulers of
Buenos Aires, showed up at the confirmation hearings.23 Immediately, he
became a star off-stage commentator. Interviewed by the press, Timerman
registered a strong negative view of the selection, which promptly killed the
appointment.
The NGO that would fill the need for an unusually influential human
rights lobbyist on Latin American affairs was Americas Watch, a new creation
in 1981. The autobiography of its creator, Aryeh Neier, together with a per-
sonal interview with him and with a key foundation official during the eight-
ies, Shepard Forman, vividly illuminates the various elements that went into
the making of this new NGO and the shaping of its purpose. Americas Watch
had been preceded by the founding of the U.S. Helsinki Watch—the first
Watch group—in 1978, which was intended to deal with human rights mat-
ters in Europe, mainly Eastern Europe. This subject will be examined in detail
in the next chapter.
Despite the similarities of the Watch names, the objectives and the moti-
vations of the two groups were very different: As early as the fall of 1978,
Neier made clear that his immediate aim in international affairs was to create
an active lobbying group for Latin American human rights issues. Until
1978, he had served as the director of the American Civil Liberties Union. It
was then that, according to his memoirs, he received a telephone call from
Robert Bernstein, the president of Random House, who headed a lobbying
group for freedom of expression in the publishing industry—Fund for Free
Expression. Bernstein, at the time, had agreed to establish the U.S. Helsinki
Watch and he wanted Neier as his vice-chairman. Neier, with little interest in
Eastern Europe, as he recalled in an interview, commented, “I said I would
if I could create Americas Watch alongside.”24
Neier, while preparing to leave the ACLU after a fifteen-year stint, contin-
ued to serve as a visiting professor at New York University and a fellow (later
director) of the New York Institute for the Humanities. His role as vice-chair
of the Helsinki Watch was largely administrative and, of course, part-time.25
Latin American human rights remained, in the meantime, very much on
his mind. He had earlier actively served with the well-known NGO, Inter-
American Association for Democracy and Freedom, and, in that capacity, had
already come into contact with human rights activists as well as public offi-
cials from various parts of Latin America.26
The election of Ronald Reagan as president in November 1980 prompted
Neier (along with Bernstein) to hasten realization of his original plans. It was
time to “work more directly in public policy,” he wrote in his memoirs. His
administrative position in the Helsinki Watch, he thought, “would provide
a good platform to oppose the new administration’s appalling policies on
international human rights.” He moved quickly to establish Americas Watch
as a growing concern by asking an especially prominent New York attorney,
Orville Schell, to chair the proposed body. Schell was a senior partner of a
top law firm with elitist credentials that served as counsel to major U.S. cor-
porations. Schell could be particularly appealing to the foundation. In addi-
tion, he had served on various fact-finding missions to Latin America. (Schell
was also to serve as vice-chair of Helsinki Watch. This permitted Neier to
contend to liberals, “our goal was not the opportunistic” goal of merely
applying human rights rhetoric for “Cold War purposes.” But he himself
rarely ventured into the day-to-day work of the Helsinki process; instead, as
he noted, Americas Watch “consumed the lion’s share” of his own time.27)
The anticipated work of Americas Watch, as envisaged by Neier, coincided
with the foundation’s new program on human rights, enunciated the same
year as the Reagan presidency. The foundation’s Annual Report of 1980 had
explicitly indicated its strong commitment to human rights and social justice.
A little earlier, as Picken’s in-house study showed, the foundation had come
to the recognition that the “effectiveness” of its initial program of develop-
ment assistance was “severely impaired in places where governments were
engaged in a pattern of repression.”28 The principal focal point of foundation
policy, as noted by Picken, was now Latin America.29 In surveying repression
around the globe, Picken noted, conditions in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe were far too oppressive for foundation offices to even open let alone
function; in Asia, where the foundation did have offices, the governments
were hostile to challenges from NGOs on human rights issues. In Latin
America, a certain threshold of sustainability existed, even if it was tentative.
Here the foundation could and did operate on a “dual approach to grant-
making”: on one level were the grants to local groups, like the Vicariate; on
the other was the funding of international NGOs based in the United States.
It was to this “dual-level approach” that a critical foundation decision,

made on June 5, 1981, was oriented. The decision took the form of an interof-
fice memorandum entitled “Human Rights and Impact,” written by Shepard
Forman, director of the new program on human rights and social justice,
and sent to Vice-President Susan Berresford. Forman, an American scholar
of Latin American affairs, who had completed his doctoral research work on
Brazil some years earlier, first took note in his memo of the local NGOs, like
Vicariate, that had “enabled these organizations to organize research and
analyze and disseminate information” from their archives. Also noted was the
foundation’s support of the World University Service that helped maintain
the reputation and livelihood of Chilean exiles. Further cited was a mission
to Argentina by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the Bar
Association of New York City. Forman thought that the mission had “helped
awaken consciousness in this country [the United States] to problems of mass
disappearances in Argentina through reports to congressional committees
and the Organization of American States.”
The Argentine experience with the Lawyers Committee and the N.Y. Bar
Association pointed to the direction that Forman sought to go with respect
to international NGOs. His emphasis was clearly upon NGO activism. Even
as he noted the “difficult situations in the developing world,” he stressed the
need to maximize public attention, internationally on human rights abuses.
That Neier would similarly want to pursue an activist course was certain. In
May 1981, he began giving Americas Watch full attention. At the time, he
left the NY Institute for the Humanities and NYU.
Americas Watch’s first proposal for a grant came in early September 1981, a
few months after Forman had indicated his overall perspective. It was quite
brief, only five pages. A rather staggering figure was proposed for a three-year
grant: $973,000. The work of the new organization would cover only civil and
political rights. As Neier would repeatedly insist, economic and social rights,
unlike “practices of government,” are not “susceptible to evaluation in accor-
dance with internationally recognized standards.” At this point, Neier clearly
focused on why the creation of a new Watch group was essential. He argued
that the U.S. Helsinki Watch, which inevitably focused on the totalitarian
regimes of Eastern Europe, therefore “[did] a disservice to our cause for the
United States to distinguish in the conduct of its foreign policy between abuses
in hostile totalitarian countries and abuses by friendly authoritarian countries.”
This would suggest that “the latter [abuses] were of no great moment to us.”
Since the foundation in the eighties often emphasized that stirring of “cold
war” emotions ought to be avoided, Neier thought that he would touch a sym-
pathetic chord with reference to it. He explicitly noted in his formal request to
the foundation that a predominant focus upon the Helsinki Watch would
“appear to be a Cold War exercise.” This certainly would have been of little
concern to Bundy, who as part of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
was very much involved in cold war activities. His subsequent interest in expos-
ing Soviet brutalities and weakening the Kremlin’s international impact in the
next chapter, which reveals how he became a strong advocate of employing
the human rights provisions of Helsinki against the Soviet Union and its
satellites. Bundy would retire from the foundation in 1979.
The most significant Neier proposal, and one that would carry decisive
weight with the foundation, dealt with the nature of the expected member-
ship of Americas Watch. The initial signal was given with the appointment of
Orville Schell. Elitist, top-level personalities with great influence in a variety
of policy-making areas would constitute, Neier said, the “new constituency”
that would address Latin American human rights abuses. Neier went on to
say that Americas Watch would be composed of those “well-connected with
the congress, the executive branch of government and the press.” Thus, he
contended, with an apparent awareness of what the foundation was seeking,
Americas Watch would be “in a position to enlist prominent persons in the
United States in support of beleaguered human rights groups elsewhere in
the Americas.” The letterhead of the new NGO, with its list of prominent
elitist sponsors, would reveal what Neier called “clout,” a term that founda-
tion staffers would emphasize. It could be used effectively to command
attention from the media and policy makers.
At times, the role of the “new constituency” was made explicit by Neier in
ways no other NGO could imagine. He noted that in dealing with “ques-
tions . . . about military aid, economic aid, cultural exchange, trade, or visits
by foreign dignitaries, we [will] try to see that human rights practices are
taken into account.” “Clout” would even be used to influence businesses so
that the corporate world would play a role in responding to human rights
abuses. As a climactic point, Neier noted that he would aim to facilitate the
development of the inter-American human rights movement. All this would
be accomplished, wrote Neier, without intruding into the work of other
foundation grantees. Americas Watch would “complement rather than dupli-
cate their work”; its primary focus would simply be to “engage a new con-
stituency . . . to promote human rights.”
Forman was anxious to approach the Neier proposal with two key con-
cerns. The first was the question of whether the proposed NGO would have
adequate ties to the Latin American region so that its information for the
media and policy-makers could evoke a strong, favorable response; and the sec-
ond was his request that under no circumstances should the international
NGO be seen as overriding and diminishing local NGOs. On these ques-
tions, a new Forman memorandum—dated September 11, 1981, and addressed
to Franklin Thomas through Vice-Presidents Berresford and Carmichael—
initially revealed grave doubts among the foundation staff about Americas
Watch.30
At the very beginning of his memorandum, Forman referred to a lunch-
eon that he had had with Neier, Bernstein, and Adrian DeWind, another very
prominent New York attorney. The date of the luncheon was not specified
but it probably occurred after his receipt of the original Neier proposal.
Apparently, the discussion at the luncheon suggested that there was “a cer-
tain potential for difficult negotiations,” presumably because “Bernstein’s
expectations probably [exceeded] our enthusiasm” about the proposal as

“currently conceived.” Neier, in his memoirs, recalled that in May 1981
when he took over Americas Watch, he sensed or was informed that founda-
tion program offices were reluctant to even consider his proposal, as they did
not know who comprised the group and what their credentials were in the
field of Latin American studies.
Forman, for his part, initially stressed in the memo to Thomas that in the
prior creation of the Helsinki Watch, the negotiations had taken place directly
between Bernstein and Bundy, thus eliminating the research work and plan-
ning of foundation staff. Forman found that this “two-tiered approach” at
“staff and executive levels” had an “unproductive” consequence, as it led to
“implicit encouragement for Bernstein not to take staff-level questions seri-
ously.” Forman sought Thomas’s “concurrence” in having staff convey com-
ments to the Bernstein group that could diminish its excessive expectations.
That Forman wanted to avoid a high-handed and private approach to Americas
Watch is self-evident.
It was not that Forman was unhappy with Neier’s plans. In his letter, he
stated almost immediately that, in principle, the establishment of Americas
Watch was necessary as a means for promoting human rights throughout the
Western hemisphere. He took note of the fact that reputable human rights
advocates, such as the OAS Human Rights Commission President, Tom
Farer (who was also a Rutgers Law School professor), had endorsed the pro-
posal. It was also endorsed by the Inter-American Human Rights Court
Judge, Thomas Buergenthal (now a member of the International Court of
Justice). Still, the proposal had to be sent out to the various regional offices
of the foundation in Latin America for their evaluations. Besides, he had to
be concerned with the “hefty price tag” as spelled out by Neier for the
“range of activities” anticipated for Americas Watch. The proposed three-
year budget specified $259,000 for the first year, $324,000 for the second,
and $390,000 for the third.
William Carmichael and Jeffrey Puryear were expected to evaluate the
proposal as well as to seek the views of the foundation’s regional offices. As
Neier was pressing for a firm answer to his request, Forman proposed that
until he heard from the field, Americas Watch could get started, but for the
time being, it should only expect to receive one hundred thousand dollars for
a twelve- to eighteen-month period. Such a financial strategy, he added,
would provide the necessary time to evaluate the Watch group’s progress and
its “style of operation.” The time frame delay for a full evaluation by all par-
ties might also “induce some cost consciousness” and result in the “tailoring”
of its “range of activities and organization structure.” Scrawled on the bot-
tom of the Forman memo were the letters “OK,” followed by the initials
“FT,” which clearly suggested that President Franklin Thomas agreed with
the approach.
On September 23, 1981, Neier submitted a second proposal to Forman,
taking account of the latter’s concerns in a cover memorandum. Some of these
concerns were the outgrowth of a series of discussions that the two had had
after the Forman memorandum to Thomas on September 11. Forman also
wanted to know who would be staffing the proposed body. Neier indicated
that Juan Mendez, a former Argentine civil liberties lawyer who had been
imprisoned by the military rulers before immigrating to the United States,
would direct Americas Watch in Washington where it would seek to lobby
Congress and the administration. Another professional on Latin American
affairs, Pamela Falk, who was already known to Forman, was to head up the
New York office that would deal with media coverage. Aware that Forman
and his colleagues were concerned about the “hefty price tag” for the new
Watch group, Neier explained in his covering letter that he had already
begun discussions with several other foundations, including the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund, to support the operation. He expected to raise half of the
new NGO’s budget from these additional sources.
Stress, however, was placed less on funding than on the heavy influence
that Americas Watch would exert through the “clout” of its leadership. The
“new constituency,” Neier explained, was “an important characteristic” of
Americas Watch, as it would be composed of individuals with “clout” who
were prepared “to use that clout to promote human rights.” A positive eval-
uation from the foundation would be forthcoming soon after Neier’s addi-
tional submission. On November 9, 1981, almost two months to the day after
Forman’s interoffice memorandum, a major foundation regional official,
William Saint, wrote to Jeffrey Puryear that the head of the foundation’s Lima
regional office, Antonio Munoz-Najar, had met several days earlier with
Neier and was rather impressed.31 According to Saint, the Lima office ini-
tially had had a “cautionary response” to Americas Watch but, after the meet-
ing with Neier, the key office staffer “came away with a significantly favorable
impression.” What particularly impressed the Lima office was Americas
Watch’s familiarity with the Latin American scene. It “possesses greater knowl-
edge of contacts with human rights groups within the region . . . than was ini-
tially apparent,” reported Saint on information received from Lima.
In view of the fact that Forman had dispelled foundation concerns about
how well-versed Neier and his associates might be about Latin American
human rights issues, he and foundation staffers would be relieved that the
regional office report was encouraging. Saint also took note of the favorable
attitude toward Americas Watch by local informal networks of NGOs. “These
groups,” he wrote, “view AWC [Americas Watch committee] efforts with
some degree of legitimacy.” And, with respect to the other concern of the
Ford Foundation that no international NGO might seek to overwhelm or
endanger the local NGO, assurances were given by Neier that the local Latin
American NGOs would be able to exercise “veto power” over the very pro-
posals made by Americas Watch.
What especially impressed Saint were the delineated plans for the separate
Washington and New York offices of Americas Watch. He welcomed the idea
that the Washington office would “serve the obvious function of coordinating
and orchestrating efforts to make U.S. foreign policy more responsive to

general and specific human rights concerns.” As for the New York office, he
expressed enthusiasm for the idea that it would “mobilize ‘clout,’” for working
with the media and tapping “the large reservoir of socially concerned lawyers
for pro bono legal work frequently required for human rights cases.”
It was the final judgment of Saint, after ascertaining the views of the Lima
regional office, that its meeting with Neier had gone a long way to “dispel
doubts.” Grant appropriations could now move forward. Approval was given
for a grant of $180,000 in 1982 to Bernstein’s Fund for Free Expression.
Foundation staffers summarized the purpose of the grant as follows: “To
create an influential constituency for the Latin American human rights move-
ments in the United States.” 32 The grant went on to recognize that the
human rights scene in Latin America had become “especially troublesome in
the last 15 years.” Development work no longer could effectively address
economic and poverty matters since human rights abuses had become “par-
ticularly alarming because they [occurred] in one of the most economically
advanced parts of the developing world.”
The Ford Foundation staff’s comments on why the sizable two-year grant
was given to the Americas Watch was elaborated upon in some detail.
Remarkably, it echoed the language used by the grantee, Aryeh Neier, to an
unusual degree. The major motivation was to help organize a group with
“clout” that would influence U.S. foreign policy to show “concern for these
human rights violations of deep interest to Americans.” For the moment, the
staff continued, human rights appeared to have been relegated to “a minor
role within the East-West ideological debate” with “the danger of being sub-
merged within ‘cold war’ politics.” One consequence was that “the numer-
ous human rights groups in the [Latin American] region that took courage
under the previous [Jimmy Carter] administration” now found it difficult to
get a sympathetic hearing in the Reagan administration and constantly risked
suppression in their own countries. “Clout” was critical for a breakthrough
to media as well as power centers.
With this reasoning, the next logical step was to seek to affect U.S. policy.
The staff spelled out in the grant the intended strategy: “The Foundation’s
underlying strategy has been to help establish and strengthen human rights
groups within the region and [then] to link them to international non-
governmental organizations that can work within them to improve human
rights conditions.” It was a strikingly revealing disclosure of the assumptions
and presumptions of the foundation about how to make human rights
progress in Latin America. The comments about Americas Watch were rather
extraordinary. It was considered to be one of the “most promising of . . .
regional groups.” The term “regional” was applied to its special focus on
Latin America.
Laudatory formulations were used to characterize the organization. It was
described as being composed of a “diverse set of private sector figures,
human rights activists and Latin Americanists.” Neier was said to have “an
excellent track record in civil and human rights activities in the U.S. and
abroad,” and he was praised as having “developed the credibility and con-
tacts in U.S. officialdom and media necessary to work effectively.” In view of
the unusual attributes of Americas Watch and its key personnel, how could
anyone complain, then, about the “hefty price tag” that the foundation
assumed, even when it lowered considerably—at least initially—the rather
huge expenditures sought by Neier?
At the center of Americas Watch’s role and expected impact, as revealed
by the foundation’s staff in its grant comment, was the NGO’s ability to
apply external pressure—through the U.S. government and the international
media—upon Latin American governments that systematically violated human
rights. That crucial impact on the U.S. government was to be a blend of “pri-
vate suasion with public attention.” The “clout” of the group could also be
shown by private arrangements of “quiet conversation” with key and senior
government officials and with officials in the private sector, for example, in
the business world or in think tanks. Whether and how this was possible with
top Reagan officials, whether in the White House or in the State Department,
was not examined in the grant’s comments, except in one instance having to do
with Chile. The grant pointed out that Americas Watch had been “instrumen-
tal” in getting the State Department and high-level congressional delegations
to Chile to focus upon police arrests in that country. Neier himself was
reported to have testified before Congress about repression in Chile, and he
then traveled there, a gesture “hailed by Chilean human rights advocates.”
Far more significant was the impact of the Watch upon the media. The
foundation staff, in its grant comments, expected the NGO to ensure that
the media “gave appropriate and accurate coverage to human rights problems.”
And this it did brilliantly, getting newspapers to cover its reports and activi-
ties. This was especially implemented through fact-finding missions fre-
quently undertaken by Americas Watch leaders and staff to “trouble spots”
in Latin America. They would be expected, noted the foundation grant, to
obtain “firm and balanced information on human rights conditions” that
would be credible to observers abroad. If Americas Watch thought it appro-
priate, key U.S. officials would be encouraged to undertake fact-finding
missions. Thus, U.S. congressmen as well as the assistant secretary of state for
Latin American affairs were persuaded to add the important NGO, the
Chilean Human Rights Commission, to their agenda of scheduled meetings
in Santiago to hear firsthand from independent sources about human rights
abuses. Meetings with this NGO ordinarily were not part of official U.S.
trips during the Pinochet era, when such contacts were viewed as hostile.
The ability of Americas Watch to encourage and arrange such visits could
not fail to help justify the “hefty price tag.” The grant of $180,000 was to
cover six fact-finding missions and the preparation of three or four major
reports, as well. The grant was also intended to help the Inter-American
Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica convene a regional meeting of local
human rights groups that would also be attended by international groups
dealing with Latin American issues.
While a major proposed objective of Americas Watch was to “maintain an

on-going relationship with the State Department so as to enhance its under-
standing of human rights issues in Latin America,” this could rarely be
accomplished during the Reagan era. State Department officials, especially
those who were political appointees, often regarded the reports and meetings
of Americas Watch as imbalanced and prejudicial to U.S. interests. Apparently,
this failing of Americas Watch did not affect the foundation’s attitude. Neier
recalled that the foundation staff was generally happy with his operation.
Only once did he receive a negative report about his attacks on U.S. policy
with respect to Central America. The report was prompted by a series of edi-
torials in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Americas Watch for its reports
on Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Neier remembered that Jeffrey
Puryear, a key figure in the foundation. approached him and asserted that
“there were people in the Ford Foundation who were expressing concern
about this,” referring to the editorials.
Apparently, Neier remained unconcerned about the criticism. In his mem-
oirs, he considered that the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page was “always
very right-wing” and, therefore, “really hated” Americas Watch. On the con-
trary, he took great pride in the work of his organization. “Americas Watch,”
he wrote “made its mark and made its mark quite substantially.” Besides, no
interruption in the foundation’s funding to the group took place.
What was decisive for the foundation was the Americas Watch’s ability to
deliver. In the foundation staff’s comment on the grant to this NGO, it chose,
at one point, to compare it with several other international NGOs dealing
with Latin America, including WOLA. The grant report noted, “Americas
Watch is distinct in its ability to reach influential actors within the United
States government and in the media and to respond quickly and effectively to
problems in a large number of countries.” If that was not laudatory enough,
the foundation staff went on to say, “They have developed strong ties with
various national Latin American human rights institutions and are increas-
ingly able to organize support for these groups in the United States.” Nor
did the staff express any concern about the future funding of the organiza-
tion. To the contrary, they stated, “Given Neier’s skill and track record” in
raising sizable funds, “the group’s fund raising strategy holds consider-
able progress.”
The impact of the work of the human rights NGOs, both local and inter-
national, would be felt within a decade of the Pinochet coup. This was
noticed by foundation consultant Margaret Crahan in November 1982. She
wrote that the “more notorious violations of human rights have declined in
Chile and Argentina.”33 That the international NGOs served as a valuable
supporter, even protector, of the activist local NGOs was enthusiastically
commented upon by the foundation office in Lima in 1985. The interna-
tional organizations, the Lima Program Review observed, extended vigorous
“support” to the local NGOs.34 An analyst of the foundation’s activity in
Latin America, writing toward the end of the decade, commented, “these
[international] organizations continue to play an indispensable networking
and back up role for national [i.e. local] human rights organizations.”35 Even
when local NGOs, under circumstances of intensified repression, could not
provide even the basic documentation on abuses, the analyst added, the
international NGOs somehow managed to perform that function.
But, of course, it was the local NGOs who were on the frontline of the
struggle and played the decisive role in affecting changes locally, especially in
Chile, which had provided them with a rich democratic heritage to sustain
their spirit and activity. Strikingly, the foundation stood in the forefront of
sustaining their activism. In August 1986, the foundation gave the Vicariate
a grant of two hundred thousand dollars for a two-year period.36 The “Precis”
in the grant recommendation emphasized that the foundation funds would
be used for the protection of individuals detained for political reasons by the
armed forces.”37
Significantly, two years later, a quarter-million dollar grant was given for
a specific new task for the Vicariate that emphasized the blossoming of the
embryonic democratic movement within Chile and the anticipation of a
major democratic breakthrough. As noted in the grant’s “Precis,” the new
funding would, as in the past, “provide legal services for human rights vic-
tims being fined in civilian and military courts.” But, in addition, the grant
would enable the Vicariate “to prepare cases for the public record and for
possible use when independent judicial processes [were] eventually reacti-
vated.” What was being projected was a future “when civilian government
returns” and “more than ten thousand cases . . . could be pursued.”38 The
“Precis” actually spoke of the Vicariate “computerizing its documentation of
the human rights records it had been accumulating. Later they would be
used for a national truth commission and court cases.
The projection of a set of circumstances into the future was not acciden-
tal. A consultant to the foundation, in July 1988, had called the foundation’s
attention to a contemplated “plebescite” for October 1988 whose “out-
come” was uncertain, but that, nonetheless, indicated that the Vicariate and
other Chilean human rights NGOs were at a “critical juncture.” The staff
report citing the consultant’s analysis commented that “the past several
years” had seen an “abatement . . . of the harshest [military] abuse” and a
“growing prospect for a democratic tradition.”39 What then had to be antic-
ipated was “the prospect for a transition to democracy.”
The two grantees and smaller allies proved to be remarkably successful in
building a potent and effective national human rights movement. On March
11, 1990, sixteen years and six months after the military coup, power was
transferred from General Augusto Pinochet to Patricio Aylwin, a Christian
Democrat who had led a coalition of opposition forces to an electoral victory
the previous December. The date of the significant democratic achievement
in Chile coincided with the collapse of the Soviet empire and a partial break-
through to democratic rule in Russia proper and in the various separate
republics of the USSR, which would itself fall apart in December 1991, and
a remarkable shift in the destiny of the former apartheid state of South Africa
to democratic rule (to be fully realized in 1994). The Ford Foundation had
been extraordinarily active in steps leading to climactic events in three sepa-
rate continents at approximately the same time, although in quite different
ways. By the last decade of the twentieth century, the foundation could
derive enormous satisfaction from its role. As the twentieth century neared
its end, appropriately enough, the head of the foundation’s Chilean office,
now back in Santiago, commented:
For more than two decades, the Ford Foundation has supported the struggle
for human rights throughout the world. In the Southern Cone of Latin
America, during a period of repressive military regimes, we were privileged to
accompany courageous groups that created a national movement to protect
basic human rights and constituted an unprecedented form of moral opposi-
tion to dictatorship.40
Chapter 5
U . S . H e l s i n k i Watc h :
Th e Fo u n d at i o n i n E a s t e r n E u r o pe
D evelopments in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America beginning in 1973

constituted for the Ford Foundation leaders one of two critical concerns that
prompted a revolutionary shift in the organization’s general policy and in its
grant program. That concern was about authoritarian societies in which the
military played a decisive role. The other critical concern was about Eastern
Europe under Soviet domination, where totalitarianism prevailed and had
struck heedlessly and pitilessly at fundamental human rights. While the Pinochet
seizure of power illuminated the urgent need for a special and new focus
upon human rights in Latin America, the second concern was prompted, ini-
tially, not at all by a military act, but rather by a peace-oriented accord aimed
at reducing tensions in Europe between the democratic West and the
communist-dominated East. Called the Helsinki Final Act and adopted on
August 1, 1975—two years after the Pinochet military coup—it expressed a
new détente. The Final Act was not intended to be a treaty; rather it was
intended to take account of the conflicting views of the West and the East
over security and human rights concerns.
Adopted by the so-called Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe (CSCE), it embraced all the states of Europe as well as the United
States and Canada by virtue of their link to NATO, the military alliance of the
European and North American democracies. Two years of diplomatic bar-
gaining brought the act into existence. The initial idea had been promoted by
the Soviet Union, which sought to formally legitimize the new post-war bor-
ders, thereby enlarging especially the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent,
communist Poland. Legitimization of the new borders in Eastern Europe
also meant formal recognition of the Democratic Republic of Germany, or,
East Germany. “Inviolability of borders,” the primary Soviet objective, was,
however, balanced by the inclusion, at the West’s insistence, of Principle
VII, which demanded “respect for human rights and fundamental freedom.”
Principle VII was the thesis whose implications constituted a fundamen-
tal challenge to totalitarianism. The “freedoms” specified in Principle VII
included “thought, conscience, and religion or belief.” Equally challenging
to totalitarian regimes was the inclusion of Basket 3, which emphasized the

Act’s theme of “freer movement of people and ideas.”1
Initially perceived as but a modest instrument of détente, the Helsinki
process, through several intergovernmental meetings of the CSCE, took on
an increasingly potent human rights dimension that ultimately produced
breakthroughs in the form of democratic revolutions in 1989 in the Eastern
European “satellites.” The restraining shackles of the communist regimes
collapsed and the subsequent elections brought democrats to power. By the
end of 1991, the Soviet Union itself disintegrated. What greatly contributed
to the historic and revolutionary changes was the role of nongovernmental
organizations, most notably those formed in Eastern Europe, which were
greatly assisted by newly established Western NGOs sponsored and sustained
by the Ford Foundation.
It was in Moscow that the idea of forming a nongovernmental organiza-
tion specifically oriented to the Helsinki process first was developed.2
The originator was Yuri Orlov, a prominent physicist and member of the
Armenian Academy of Sciences who, in 1975, had helped form the USSR
chapter of Amnesty International. If other dissenters and opponents of Soviet
rule—like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sinyavsky—saw in the Helsinki
Final Act a capitulation to Soviet strategic interests and a betrayal of human
rights aspirations, Orlov was struck by its useful, if modest, human rights fea-
tures such as Principal VII and Basket 3. When the Kremlin chose to publish
the entire text of the Helsinki accords in the government newspaper,
Izvestiia, in September 1975, various readers, according to a chronicler of
the dissident movement, “were stunned by its humanitarian provisions.”3 For
Orlov, an invaluable lever had been handed to the democrats.4 “It was the
Soviet government itself that gave us something to work with,” he observed.
An extraordinarily perceptive analyst, he alone quickly recognized that “if the
Soviet government said [Helsinki] was important, it was, in fact, important.”
Initially, Orlov proposed—on the basis of the recommendation of his col-
league, Anatoly Shcharansky—that dissident and democratic members of the
Soviet intelligentsia should invite their friends and colleagues in various
Western countries to form NGO groups that would monitor compliance
with Helsinki’s human rights provisions everywhere. Once this was achieved,
he thought, he and his associates in Moscow “[could] create the same sort of
[NGO] committee at home with less risk of persecution.” But he soon
rejected this approach and discarded the already prepared appeal to Western
intellectuals. Orlov had concluded that liberals in the West were so preoccu-
pied with disarmament issues that “nobody in Europe [would] care” about
human rights. The alternative had become clear. “If we wanted compliance
with the Helsinki Final Act,” Orlov understood, “it was up to us to monitor
it.” He formed the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group on May 12, 1976, with
about a dozen courageous activists who would accumulate a mass of carefully
assembled data on all facets of Helsinki human rights abridgements made by
the Kremlin.
U.S. Helsinki Watch: The Foundation in Eastern Europe 91
Moscow’s Helsinki Watch Group took special note of a Final Act provi-
sion calling upon the citizenry of member states to assist in forming NGOs
in all states that would check on the compliance of their governments with
the provisions of the act. From these separate national NGOs there would
emerge, the group’s statement hoped, “an International Committee for
Support.” It took several years before this remarkable vision would take root,
first by the creation in the United States of a Helsinki Watch NGO and, a
decade later, the creation of the International Helsinki Federation. In the
meantime, the Moscow group prepared and distributed an extraordinary
amount of detailed and valuable documentation on human rights compliance—
or rather, on noncompliance—by the Soviet Union. A modest twenty-six
documents were provided for use by the West at the Belgrade review confer-
ence in 1977–78. For the later Madrid review conference, which would occur
during 1980–83, the group prepared the striking figure of 138 documents.5
Even as the significance of the Helsinki Final Act and its human rights
provisions quickly were grasped by Orlov and his colleagues in the USSR, so,
too, did elements of the democratic intelligentsia in Poland recognize that
they now had a concrete focus for their opposition to the Polish Communist
regime. The first expression of the new core of dissidents was an “open let-
ter” sent on December 5, 1975, by fifty-nine intellectuals, artists, writers,
and scientists to the Speaker of the Parliament and the Council of State. The
manifesto, taking note of the Helsinki Final Act and its reference to the
International Covenants on Human Rights, demanded fulfillment of the free-
doms of expression and of conscience. In concluding the manifesto, the
signers observed that the various freedoms “confirmed at the Helsinki Con-
ference” had “today assumed international importance.” A crucial linkage
implied in the Helsinki document then was emphasized: “Where there is no
freedom, there can be neither peace nor security.”
The formal nongovernmental organization that would give expression to
the views of the manifesto was the Committee of Workers Defense (KOR).6
It came into existence in September 1976, although as a coalition of intellec-
tuals. The then-unnamed committee was already functioning as early as June,
providing assistance to workers in Radom, Poland, who had been fired from
their jobs after they went on strike. The bond between intellectuals and trade
unionist workers was to be the distinctive feature of Polish dissent as it devel-
oped into the mass organization, Solidarity. But the key standard to which
KOR would cling was the Helsinki accord. The activist and electrical trade
unionist initially employed in the shipyards of Gdansk and later head of soli-
darity, Lech Walesa, was to clarify and highlight the Helsinki linkage in his
autobiography. After noting that “freedom of expression” was a “central
freedom,” Walesa commented that it was “a direct corollary of the Helsinki
agreement.” He saw himself “as part of a vast pattern,” and he “began to rec-
ognize an international dimension to our [Polish] problems.” In that recog-
nition, he said, he “learned of the existence of human rights groups abroad
to whom we could appeal.”
The activism of KOR was accompanied by the formation of the Polish

Helsinki Committee (later called the Helsinki Committee in Poland). It became
the principal channel to the West for documented information on human
rights violations accumulated by Solidarity offices throughout the country.
Solidarity, as the successor to KOR but with a greatly enlarged membership
drawn from the working class, functioned until December 13, 1980, when
the military coup of Marshal Wojciech Jaruzelski banned it. But its under-
ground leadership continued to assemble and transmit documentation to
the West.
Czechoslovakia’s principal human rights nongovernmental organization,
Charter 77, was formed but a few months after Poland’s KOR. On January
6, 1977, the new group distributed a petition of 240 signatories listing in
detail the violations of human rights in Czechoslovakia and demanding
adherence to the Helsinki accord and the UN human rights covenant, which
the Prague government had ratified the previous March and, ironically, pub-
lished in the press in October 1976.7 Intimate linkage of Charter 77 with the
Helsinki accord was made explicit in a letter signed by the group’s leaders,
Vaclav Havel, Jiri Dienstbier, and Vaclav Benda, and smuggled out of the
prison in which they were incarcerated. Sent to the CSCE Madrid review meet-
ing in December 1980, the letter said that “the creation of this [Charter 77]
movement concerning human rights” was held to be “entirely in harmony”
with the Helsinki accords, as the text of the latter had made “evident.”
By 1988, Charter 77 was exerting such a strong public impact that it could
hold large public demonstrations against the regime and garner petitions
signed by thousands. In November 1988, the group formed the Czechoslovak
Helsinki Committee. During strikes and demonstrations twelve months
later, Charter 77 veterans created the Civic Forum, which, after organizing
mass rallies and negotiating with the authorities, proceeded to take power in
a coalition government on December 10—Human Rights Day.8 The “Velvet
Revolution” had brought the NGO outsider to the very seat of authority.
In the course of a little over a decade, a vast transformation had taken
place in Eastern Europe. But the potential had scarcely been apparent when
the Helsinki Final Act was signed and the first review conference in Belgrade
was being planned. In fact, it was precisely the review conferences that
offered a stage for detailing the deprivation, discrimination, and repression in
the communist societies of Eastern Europe. Such airing of documented facts
was precisely the means for triggering the public outburst in Warsaw, Prague,
Budapest, and later Bucharest. An American NGO that was virtually cre-
ated by the Ford Foundation was to play a valuable role in assisting the new
Eastern European NGOs to ultimately prevail.
Key parts of the Final Act, Principle VII and Basket 3, could not but focus
international attention upon the plight of dissenters and minorities. Western
democratic leaders, especially in the United States under President Jimmy
Carter, could be expected to raise the matter at the Final Act’s first follow-up
conference scheduled for October 4, 1977, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Several
months before the Belgrade meeting, the foundation’s program officer on
human rights, Bruce Bushey, wrote a letter emphasizing how the founda-
tion was supporting “Helsinki issues.”9 While the foundation was keenly
aware of the human rights features of the Final Act, it could not and did not
initially conceive of the Belgrade meeting acting as a major agent of human
rights change. There was, after all, a central theme of the Helsinki Final
Act—security—that was covered mainly by Basket 1. In addition, the Final
Act embraced Basket 2, covering trade.
Unlike developments in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America, Helsinki
offered a banner and a broader frame of reference that ineluctably could
diminish human rights abuses. Much would depend on what would happen
at Belgrade and the nature of the response. Emerging ultimately from these
uncertainties was the new nongovernmental organization, U.S. Helsinki
Watch, with whose creation the foundation was intimately linked. Indeed,
without the foundation, that NGO and, therefore, its subsequent exten-
sions and recreation as Human Rights Watch, would not have seen the light
of day. U.S. Helsinki Watch was very much the mythical Galatea shaped by
a Ford Foundation Pygmalion. This NGO, in fact, was far more than a mere
appendage to a contemporary event. The internal essays and debates of the
mid-seventies in the Ford Foundation on future strategy with respect to
human rights, following the David Heaps initiative, repeatedly refer to cer-
tain international human rights NGOs as viable targets of foundation grants-
manship. But what comes through in these discussions and essays are the
severe limitations of the particular NGOs surveyed to perform the functions
to which the foundation aspired. The creation of U.S. Helsinki Watch, it
would turn out, was the fulfillment of the dream of the top Ford Foundation
leadership.
Yet even before U.S. Helsinki Watch was created, a least two groups—
neither quite organized as formal NGO structures, but with their eyes set
upon the Helsinki process—were looking to the foundation for the financial
support that might transform them into agencies that would be intimately
linked to the Helsinki process. How the foundation responded to them
offers a sharp insight into what considerations moved the foundation to offer
grants. The most prominent of the two groups was the National Conference
on Human Rights, the leading figure of which was Bayard Rustin, the bril-
liant organizer of the massive Martin Luther King march on Washington,
DC, in March 1963. As early as 1977, several months prior to the Belgrade
follow-up meeting, Rustin and several advisers from Freedom House, the
AFL-CIO, B’nai B’rith, and the International Rescue Committee had pro-
jected the idea of a broad-based NGO linked to the Helsinki process at a
meeting in New York.
On June 3, 1977, the idea for such a group was initially projected. Rustin,
together with several colleagues, wrote a letter to dozens of organization lead-
ers who had been previously involved in civil rights activities in the United
States, calling attention to the Helsinki accords as they affected Eastern
Europe, the Soviet Union, and the United States.10 The letter emphasized
that the human rights provisions of Helsinki “[had] become a rallying point
for dissidents in the totalitarian countries,” which, in turn, “[had] aroused a

supporting response in the West.” Particular focus was placed upon the forth-
coming follow-up meeting of the thirty-five Helsinki signatories in Belgrade
scheduled for October. The Rustin letter urged that a conference be held for
those Americans who had served “in the forefront of the struggle for human
and civil rights” in the United States to consider ways “in which . . . dissi-
dents [in totalitarian countries] [could] be supported by activists in the U.S.”
In Rustin’s judgment, as expressed in the letter, it was “the duty of those
who have waged these [civil rights] struggles” and have won significant
progress in the United States to assist the activists in similar struggles in other
countries. He envisioned that a U.S. meeting of NGOs, which was projected
for September, one month before a Belgrade assemblage, would formally
create a Helsinki-oriented NGO. Invitees to the U.S. meeting would be civil
rights and humanitarian leaders, intellectuals, and political figures, as well as
those active “in the field of human rights.”
A couple of months after the June meeting and the drafting of the letter,
on August 8, 1977, the key figures of the various organizations, comprising
a steering committee of the proposed National Conference on Human Rights,
met in New York to plan a major national meeting entitled “Helsinki and
Human Rights.” Besides representatives from the already listed organiza-
tions, others came from Amnesty International, the Council on Religion
and International Affairs (CRIA), the Center for War and Peace Studies, and
the International League for Human Rights.11
Rustin, a product of both the civil rights and later human rights
movements—he headed the A. Philip Randolph Institute of which the AFL-
CIO was a principal sponsor—outlined what he had in mind. The decade of
the sixties in the United States was his principal focal point, and the model he
saw as the basis of a new movement oriented to the Helsinki process was
the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. That civil rights conference, as
Rustin emphasized, was a “coordinating body” for all the groups—liberal,
labor, ethnic, and religious—involved in the civil rights struggle. The newly
proposed National Conference would similarly coordinate the work of vari-
ous human rights and civil rights groups. He reminded the participants that
statements made by the proposed new organization would be reached only on
the basis of consensus, just as this was the case with the Leadership Conference
that had emerged in the sixties. According to the summary of the proceed-
ings, available in the Ford Foundation Archives, the response of the partici-
pants was “generally favorable,” although a number noted that the Helsinki
human rights efforts, because they involved foreign countries as well as U.S.
diplomatic policy, would have a “greater complexity.”
Apparently, as early as March 1977, Rustin had made contact with the
Ford Foundation about funding the broad conference of NGOs whose par-
ticipants were mainly drawn from the civil rights movement, but also includ-
ing liberal and labor groups. Shortly afterward, a key assistant program officer
f
at the foundation working on Eastern European issues, Felice Gaer, began
making formal inquiries into the plans of the Rustin group. A handwritten
memo from Gaer, dated March 14, 1977, to the principal human rights pro-
gram officer of the foundation, Bruce Bushey, indicated that she was not
overly enthused about the makeup of the group.12 She feared that among the
leadership elements of the group and, apparently, among those proposed as
speakers at the forthcoming conference, there were several who had a dis-
tinctly cold-war orientation that she found to be objectionable. Singled out
for criticism was Carl Gershman, the head of Social Democrats, U.S.A., a role
that made him appear quite “political,” given the Social Democrats’ intense
anti-Soviet sentiment.13 She had counseled the group leadership, she reported,
to seek out a speaker who would present a more balanced picture, without
the usual inclination to cold war invectives. And, she reported, she could not
“jump for joy” about a suggestion that the anticommunist Freedom House, a
major conference coordinator, be made the recipient of the foundation fund-
ing for the conference.
Nor did Gaer find the group’s plans adequate; indeed, they were seen as
“very sketchy indeed.” Notwithstanding her objections on both form and
substance, she vigorously endorsed Rustin as “smart and sensitive” and she
recommended that the foundation provide the leadership of the proposed
conference with nine thousand dollars, which had been requested for the
purpose of organizing the meeting. Nothing was proposed for funding a per-
manent operation of the Rustin group.
Bushey, himself, according to Felice Gaer, was less than enthusiastic in giv-
ing priority to funding operations related to the Helsinki Final Act.14 As a
lawyer, he was especially interested in the binding international covenants on
civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights, both
of which had just come into force in 1976. The Final Act, an international
agreement, was perceived by him as legally less than consequential since it
lacked the binding features of an international treaty. To give it significant
credibility, in his view, was unwarranted, particularly at a moment when the
legally binding covenants had gone into force. But in the realm of interna-
tional politics, the Final Act would carry extraordinary weight while all inter-
national covenants proved to be of quite limited effectiveness.
A second group involved with Helsinki that sought assistance from the
Ford Foundation was headed by Mort Sklar, a professor at Catholic University
Law School. He had organized a Washington-based Helsinki Watch group in
the spring of 1978. Evidently, again, Felice Gaer was assigned to make initial
inquiries. A later memo of hers to the foundation’s vice-president, Francis
Sutton, expressed a “negative view” about the possibility of assistance, although
she found the group’s proposed program “impressive.”15 Sklar was primarily
interested in the issue of domestic compliance, not compliance by other Final
Act signatories, particularly those in Eastern Europe.
Even as the foundation was exploring how and in which way to channel
effective funding into Helsinki-related activity, a very high-level U.S.
government official with a particularly strong interest in human rights
was experiencing a series of traumatic events, a kind of epiphany that would
bring him to McGeorge Bundy with a specific request concerning the

Helsinki process.
Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg was chosen by President Jimmy Carter to
head the U.S. delegation to the first follow-up meeting of the Final Act
scheduled for Belgrade in October 1977. With an especially strong civil lib-
erties background that he expressed while serving as secretary of the AFL-
CIO and, later, as Secretary of Labor in the Kennedy Cabinet and then as
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, he became personally involved in
vital international human rights issues. After leaving the court, he was asked
by President Lyndon Johnson to be the U.S. ambassador to the UN. There,
he personally intervened in a debate in 1966 at the fairly low-level diplomatic
meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights—an extraordinarily rare
decision by any U.S. ambassador to the UN. Ordinarily, the top official at
the UN would deal with Security Council and General Assembly issues,
not with matters on the agenda of the lesser body, the UN Commission of
Human Rights. On the Commission agenda at the time was the Soviet
Union’s ruthless suppression of Soviet intellectuals. Goldberg’s sharp
denunciation of Kremlin policy and practice had become widely known to
major Washington power brokers.
Belgrade, the site of the first follow-up meeting of the Helsinki process,
was an appropriate place for this vigorous civil libertarian and human rights
advocate to challenge Moscow and its repressive rule in Eastern Europe. At
every opportunity, Goldberg, with the unwavering support of a largely
congressional body—the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe, chaired by Dante Fascell (a Democrat from Florida)—publicly chas-
tised Soviet repression of dissidents, Jews, other religious and ethnic minori-
ties. Repression by the communist rulers elsewhere in the Soviet empire of
Eastern Europe was similarly castigated. What stunned the American ambas-
sador was that few in the West were listening or cared. Equally important, if
not more so, he was being resisted and opposed by not only the Western
European camp but also by some in his own delegation.
The U.S. and the Western press gave Belgrade a less-than-priority concern.
Correspondents rarely appeared and, when they did, their reportage tended
to suggest that harsh criticism of the USSR only undermined the striving for
peace while reinforcing cold war bitterness. Correspondents saw the Goldberg
rhetoric as oriented toward hardening the rightist anti-Soviet critics. The his-
toric preoccupation at the moment was an obsession with Vietnam. Liberal
opinion, even when informed, was not inclined to listen to anti-Soviet per-
spectives lest they weaken détente, of which the Helsinki Final Act was seen
as a clear expression.
Public opinion in Western Europe was even more hostile to the Goldberg
view of the need for a robust verbal assault upon the Kremlin. Of course, dis-
senters and liberals in the Soviet Union and its satellites were found to be in
support of the Goldberg approach, embracing any criticism that would illu-
minate their plight. Andrei Sakharov, prominent social scientist and a leading
critic of Moscow’s repressive policy, perceived Helsinki as offering an oppor-

tunity to air Soviet repression. He was close to members of the Moscow
Helsinki Watch and his wife was a member. His view about Helsinki was
similar to that of Charter 77 and Solidarity. Human rights concerns were
central to their perspective. The Western Europe public and governments
saw Helsinki as a means for mitigating cold war tensions, even if at the same
time they welcomed the emphasis given to human rights concerns.
Ambassadors from most democratic states at Belgrade were not sympa-
thetic to the Goldberg style, and they openly rejected his toughness and fre-
quently rebuffed his demands. Goldberg found himself isolated. Only rarely
did his Western colleagues join him in exposing the horrors and brutality
of communist rule. What made matters worse, deepening his anger and
irritation, was the opposition often openly displayed by many on his State
Department staff and even by his deputy ambassador. He was keenly aware
that key State Department policy-makers considered his approach as under-
mining their own aim of reducing East-West tensions. In a real sense, their
view reflected American public indifference to Soviet human rights practices
that would be reflected in the indifference of the major U.S. press organs in
their coverage of Belgrade.
When the Belgrade follow-up meeting ended in March 1978 with little
accomplished, either in the case of human rights or on security matters,
except for an agreement to hold a second follow-up meeting—in Madrid in
November 1980—Goldberg desperately sought assistance from McGeorge
Bundy, the Ford Foundation president. They knew each other from the years
during the Kennedy administration when Goldberg served as Secretary of
Labor and Bundy was the president’s National Security Adviser.
What must have been in the back of Goldberg’s mind was the need to cre-
ate an American NGO that might impact upon U.S. public opinion and drive
home the need to effectively raise the continuing repression of dissidents,
minorities, and Jews in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in communist East
Europe. Such an American NGO could also strengthen the recently created
NGOs, comprising dissidents in Eastern Europe, such as Charter 77 and
Solidarity, that were continuously harassed by the authorities. An influential
group might also stimulate the rise of similar groups in Western Europe.
While there appears to be no record of the initial Goldberg-Bundy meeting,
nor even of precisely when it was held, available information from the foun-
dation archives and from various interviews indicates that Bundy was most
responsive.16 He suggested inviting Robert Bernstein, the head of the
Random House publishing company, to join Goldberg and himself on April
5, 1978. A letter from Bernstein to Bundy dated May 23, 1978, specifically
referred to the “initial meeting with [Bundy] and Ambassador Goldberg
on April 5.”
What Bundy apparently indicated to Goldberg at their initial prior private
meeting was that Bernstein, besides his publisher’s role, had a prominent
reputation for promoting free expression, nationally and internationally. In
addition, Bernstein was reported to have excellent contacts with the media.
He was chairman of the Fund for Free Expression, which had been a recipi-
ent of Ford Foundation grants for some time. Founded in 1965, the fund
embraced publishers, editors, authors, and columnists. It was prepared to
challenge the Kremlin, and vigorously did so, on the crucial right to write
and publish all types of books, including books of dissent. Bernstein’s
activities extended beyond the fund. He had also served as chairman of the
Association of American Publishers, and, in that capacity, helped spur the
formation of a vitally active International Freedom to Publish Committee,
which vigorously took up the cudgels for foreign, including Soviet, authors.17
At the meeting on April 5, it was made clear to Bernstein that Goldberg
and Bundy desired to have the fund spark the creation, from scratch, of a
Helsinki monitoring body—a U.S. Helsinki Watch—although a name had
not as yet been decided upon. Bundy’s choice of Bernstein, and Goldberg’s
quick assent to it, certainly fit the Ford Foundation perspective. Its elitist per-
spective could easily be served, given the nature of Bernstein’s contacts with
persons in the publishing industry as well as in the broader sphere of writers
and artists. In addition, he had access to important levels of wealth and
power. The Rustin and Sklar groups would quickly fall by the wayside as pos-
sible channels of Ford Foundation funding. A later memorandum by Felice
Gaer to Francis Sutton noted, for example, that Sklar was “not a leader of the
same stature and quality as Bob [Bernstein].”18 In fact, during meetings with
Bundy, Bernstein “dismissed and ridiculed” Sklar and his associates.
Equally important, especially from Goldberg’s perspective, was that Bernstein
had already made his mark in standing up to the Kremlin and its satellites.
He had displayed no fear or reluctance in questioning the Kremlin on the
basic right of free expression. Bolstering the Goldberg perspective on what
was needed to expose the nature of Soviet rule and how it could be done was
a key figure in a U.S. congressional committee extremely involved in the
Helsinki process. This was Alfred Friendly, Jr., who served as a staff member
and “senior consultant” of the so-called U.S. Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe, a largely congressional group that had worked very
closely with Goldberg before and during the Belgrade meeting, especially in
resisting and opposing the attempted restraint on his tough posture vis-à-vis
Moscow by other Western European delegations and State Department offi-
cials in the U.S. delegation. Friendly, a former Washington Post and Newsweek
correspondent in the USSR, was more than merely a staffer for the crucial,
largely congressional body, chaired by Congressman Dante Fascell. As one
versed on human rights issues in Moscow, he had special knowledge of the
subject with which Goldberg was vitally concerned, and he was an experi-
enced journalist. For a time, he handled the public relations work of the U.S.
Commission.
Evidently, as a letter by Friendly to Goldberg on April 25, 1978, a few
weeks after the crucial April 5 meeting, indicated, Friendly had had an earlier
telephone conversation with the U.S. ambassador.19 In that prior conversation,
Friendly noted that the matter that was discussed was “[Goldberg’s] idea”
for an American NGO to keep the subject of Helsinki and human rights on
the agenda of public opinion. Friendly went on to indicate that he was more
than pleased with the Ford Foundation’s selection of Bernstein to establish a
Helsinki monitoring group. Such a group, he said, could serve as a “private
counterpart” to the U.S. Helsinki Commission and, thereby, help put “pres-
sure on the Executive Branch,” or the State Department. But the objective
that was of the greatest importance, in his view—and here he was mainly
echoing Goldberg—was “to stimulate the press to take the subject more seri-
ously than it has until now.”
Undoubtedly, at Goldberg’s request, Friendly, the U.S. Helsinki Comm-
ission staffer, met with Bernstein and promised him and his associates that
he would prepare for them a special memorandum of how the proposed
NGO would function. This was noted in Friendly’s letter to Goldberg,
although the promised memorandum of his “thinking” has not been located.
Nonetheless, he made it evident that the proposed NGO, when created and
funded, “must have a clear focus and program of action,” objectives that had
been found lacking with other U.S. groups, in the view of foundation staff
investigators. Two other people mentioned by Friendly with whom he had
met were Ed Kline and Jeri Laber (he misspelled Laber’s first name as
“Geri”). Kline was an American businessman who had made Soviet repres-
sion his priority. He had founded Khronika Press, the publishing house that
printed publications in both Russian and English, providing details on the
extent and character of Soviet repression. For specialists in the Soviet field, it
was an invaluable source on the plight of intellectuals in the USSR. Of par-
ticular importance to Kline was the work of the great Soviet physicist and
human rights advocate, Andrei Sakharov. Kline played a crucial role in alert-
ing American NGOs, intellectuals, and publicists of the threats and dangers
faced by Sakharov and his wife, Elena Bonner. Significantly, Khronika Press
was partly funded by the foundation.
The involvement of Kline at this early stage in the shaping of an NGO
monitoring group on the Helsinki process pointed to the direction the
NGO would take. Indeed, he would become a privileged adviser and guide
to Bernstein. Jeri Laber was already close to Bernstein, serving as the profes-
sional staffer of his Fund for Free Expression. She herself was trained at
Columbia University’s Russian Institute (later called the Harriman Institute),
then served, for a period of time, as an editor of the Current Digest of the
Soviet Press,
s and later worked for Radio Liberty, an institution founded indi-
rectly by the U.S. government to broadcast news into the Soviet Union.
While the principal thrust of the proposed NGO was obvious in the minds
of Goldberg, Friendly, and consultants like Kline, the initial discussion with
Bundy indicated that the function of a U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee was
to be both “domestic” and “international.” As recalled by Bernstein and his
associates, the “domestic” function of the Watch Committee was to monitor
and expose “major human rights abuses within the United States.”20 This
was rationalized on the grounds that Soviet spokesmen had been continually
accusing the United States of “meddling in the internal human rights prob-
lems of other countries while disregarding [its] own human rights abuses
at home.” The “domestic” function would “counter such arguments” and, at
the same time, show the world “that a free society allows private groups to
investigate, report and criticize shortcomings” with impunity. In striking
contrast, Moscow was charged with engaging in a major effort to silence,
intimidate, and destroy its own Moscow Helsinki Watch Group and similar
groups in various Soviet republics.
The “international” function of the organization would involve the estab-
lishment of a “liaison with Helsinki Watch groups in other countries and in
exile” and, also, to “encourage the formation of such Committees in any
of the [Helsinki] signatory countries.” As foreseen in the preliminary dis-
cussions, a “coalition of private monitoring groups” in signatory countries
“would offer moral support, a feeling of legitimacy and perhaps some small
protection to Helsinki Watch Committees in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe.” Made explicit in the Bernstein-Bundy talks was that the “protec-
tion” for these Helsinki groups, even if only conducted on a verbally moral
plane, could provide some succor to those “blatantly persecuted by the gov-
ernments even while the Belgrade Helsinki talks were in session.” Conjoining
the two “functions” would not prove easy to accomplish and hardly coin-
cided with the priorities as envisioned by Goldberg.
Problems related to the staffing and the emphasis of the newly proposed
NGO would rather quickly arise. In addition, on the staff working level of
the Ford Foundation, uncertainty prevailed as to whether the Bernstein group
would be favorably received and supported at higher foundation staff levels.
In early May, according to a memorandum from Francis Sutton to Bushey,
Bundy had requested Bernstein to prepare “a good proposal” for a monitor-
ing group.21 The amount of the grant for an initial six-month period—a kind
of testing interval—was set by Bundy at twenty-five thousand dollars. Sutton
must have been very much aware that Bushey was hardly enthusiastic about
the priority given to the Bernstein group, as it was not considered to have
human rights expertise. Several days earlier, Bushey had written to Sutton
asking to talk with him about various proposals for a different type of
Helsinki Watch Committee, including Mort Sklar’s request.22 The Bushey
memo then suggested that he would also seek to discuss with other founda-
tion officials a variety of various proposals on broad human rights themes, 40
percent of which were submitted by Professor Richard Lillich of the
University of Virginia Law School. Bushey, a lawyer deeply immersed in legal
issues, thought highly of Lillich and his proposals, particularly a recommenda-
tion to establish in Washington an International Human Rights Law Group.
Sutton, perhaps because he intellectually agreed with the foundation staffer,
or maybe because he was seeking to placate the doubting Bushey, told the
latter that he had already had a brief discussion with Bundy about selecting
the most appropriate type of Helsinki Watch group. Bundy had registered,
Sutton noted an undefined uncertainty about the Bernstein proposal. If

Bernstein’s proposal turned out to be inadequate after careful study, Sutton,
citing Bundy as the source, commented, “We don’t have to buy it.”23
In fact, the formal “request” by the Fund for Free Expression was rather
quickly prepared and submitted on May 23. Bernstein recognized the urgency
of the matter. The request referred to meetings “on a number of occasions”
after April 5, presumably with Bundy, at which were discussed “the pur-
pose of such a [Helsinki Watch] Committee and how the Fund for Free
Expression . . . would go about founding it.” Out of these discussions came
“our decision” to ask the foundation for a five-month planning grant of twenty-
five thousand dollars, covering the period of June 1, 1978, to November 1,
1978, for establishing the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee.24 The amount,
as noted, had already been proposed by Bundy. What is more than evident
was that the top Ford Foundation executive had already decided on the path
to be followed and had set in motion all the crucial steps for creating the kind
of Helsinki Watch Committee he wanted. The formal Bernstein “request”
even resonated with the kind of argument made by Goldberg to Bundy and
that found in the latter a responsive listener. It spoke of the need of the
new group to stimulate the establishment of similar monitoring groups in
Western European countries, thereby promoting “consciousness-raising”
in countries “so that the U.S. delegation to Madrid [the site of the next
follow-up meeting, scheduled for November 1980] [would] not feel as iso-
lated in its human rights stand as did the U.S. delegation to Belgrade.”
Of particular significance in the “request,” an element that would have
immediately attracted the attention of both Goldberg and Bundy, was a sec-
tion dealing with “publicity.” That subject, interpreted as bringing to the
public in the United States and abroad “an awareness of a concern for imple-
menting the human rights provisions of the Helsinki accords,” was under-
lined to emphasize its prominence in Bernstein’s scheme of things. The
following section illuminated his perspective: “Good relations with the press
would be crucial to the Committee work.” To achieve that aim, “an influen-
tial Board” would be created to help “focus attention” on Helsinki issues
in the United States and abroad. Technical human rights issues were not
addressed in the document. References to the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights were absent, as indeed were details of the Helsinki accord. Rather, the
group’s fundamental responsibility was seen as the stimulation of conferences
and publications that would spark media interest. No longer would a vacuum
exist between what was expressed at Helsinki follow-up meetings, notably by
the United States, and studies or reports by independent individuals and
reporters in the media.
A Planning Committee of some ten members of the proposed U.S.
Helsinki Watch group was to be created that would concentrate on solving
what had to be done in a variety of areas concerning substantive, organiza-
tional, and practical issues. The Planning Committee would include “promi-
nent figures in the arts, letters and sciences and from the academic and
business worlds.” The proposed names, numbering thirty-three, read like a

“Who’s Who” in the designated intellectual fields. Virtually none came from
the human rights field itself. Bernstein knew what was wanted in terms of
media attention and his contacts would facilitate achieving the set goal.
Significantly, the request specified that the Ford Foundation itself would be
“solicited” for “advice and recommendations.” From the very beginning,
U.S. Helsinki Watch linked its destiny with the foundation; even its very
origin was a product of the foundation’s planning at the highest level.
Matters moved quickly after the request was made. Even before the foun-
dation formally received the “request” of Bernstein, a dinner meeting was
scheduled for June 27, 1978, at which the future plans of U.S. Helsinki
Watch would be discussed. A letter from Jeri Laber, who would eventually
become executive director of U.S. Helsinki Watch, addressed to Bushey on
June 19, expressed appreciation that he would attend the meeting. She told
him that Alfred Friendly would be joining the discussion, and she enclosed
several U.S. Helsinki Commission reports, about which Bushey probably
knew little.25
The twenty-five thousand dollar planning grant to the Fund for Free
Expression was formally authorized on July 6, 1978.26 It was signed by the
assistant secretary of the foundation, Willard Hertz, and identified as Grant
Number 785-0517. The opening paragraph made clear that the grant did
not mean that the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee was a certainty; rather the
grant’s purpose was to have the fund “investigate whether a U.S. Helsinki
Watch Committee should be established to monitor and publicize violations
of the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act in the United States
and abroad.” There was never any indication of doubt among the respective
leaderships of the foundation and the Bernstein group that the U.S. Helsinki
Watch Committee would be created. Evidence of any perceived uncertainty
at any time frame after June 1, 1978, did not appear in a formal “Report to
the Ford Foundation” covering the “Planning Period June 1, 1978–January
31, 1979” submitted by the Fund for Free Expression.27
If a certain definitiveness was lacking in the foundation grant about the
future of the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, it was probably designed to
placate lower-level officers dealing with human rights, like Bushey. And, in
fact, his uncertainty, even anxiety, was reflected in a memorandum he sent to
Felice Gaer that dealt with Helsinki on July 28, 1978.28 In it, he noted that
he had been looking at material about various organizations such as the East-
West Institute, and at material on monitoring sent to him by William vanden
Heuvel, President of the United Nations Association. He referred to other
monitoring groups that he had “heard about”—one in Great Britain, the
other in Switzerland. In the memo, he suggested that he and Gaer meet to
discuss the various proposed monitoring groups “before [making] a decision
on Bernstein’s project.” The word “before” was underlined. To Bushey, a
firm decision “on the most effective use of foundation dollars”—as he put
it—was still up in the air.
But the Bernstein group, according to its later, although undated, formal
report, had been moving ahead with great speed. A Planning Board was
immediately created after the foundation had authorized the initial grant.
Nothing was said about the purpose of “investigating” whether a Helsinki
Watch Committee should be created. On the contrary, the Planning Board
was established “for the proposed Helsinki Watch Committee” and, indeed,
“with the assumption that they [the Planning Board members]” would be
“members of an enlarged Board of Directors for the Helsinki Watch
[Committee] whenever it began to operate.” Among the Planning Board’s
seven members who were identified, one name stands out and indicates the
thrust of Bernstein’s thinking—Arthur Miller, the distinguished playwright.
Others were Bernstein himself, Kline (head of Khronika Press), and several
prominent attorneys. Another member—Aryeh Neier—identified as Visiting
Professor of Law at New York University and former Director of the
American Civil Liberties Union—would soon play a central role in the
Helsinki Watch Committee, and in its extraordinary expansion into several
more geographically-based Watch Committees and ultimately into Human
Rights Watch.
Even as Bushey was writing memos displaying a certain confusion and
uncertainty, the Planning Board was meeting during the summer of 1978
“sporadically,” and two if its members, Aryeh Neier, and Orville Schell, a
prominent New York attorney who would soon serve as vice-chairman of the
U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, were busy precisely during the same sum-
mer drafting “preliminary prospectives of the domestic and international
functions of the Watch [Committee].”29
In addition to these meetings, the Planning Board began the actual cre-
ation of a staff. The report noted that, in October, Jeri Laber, “a
Sovietologist”—hardly an accurate description of her status—was hired as a
“part-time consultant” who would “coordinate” the development of the
Committee’s international program. As the new executive director of the
committee, David Fishlow was selected. He had previously served as execu-
tive director of the ACLU of Northern California. The choice was certainly
an odd one, as Fishlow had not been involved with the shaping of the
Helsinki Watch Committee. On the other hand, Jeri Laber had been heavily
involved as Bernstein’s close professional associate in the Fund for Free
Expression.
How the obscure appointment of Fishlow was made is not clear.
According to Laber’s autobiography, written much later, Fishlow was the
choice of Aryeh Neier, who had been solicited by Bernstein for advice on
staff appointments.30 Apparently, Neier refused, at the time, to be appointed
to the staff of Helsinki Watch even if, in Laber’s view, he would have made
“an ideal candidate for the job.” The Fishlow selection hardly shows much
clarity in the thinking of Aryeh Neier. Laber contended that Fishlow took the
position “assuming it would be mainly U.S. oriented.” How could Neier not
have recognized this assumption? Perhaps Neier himself was not yet certain
of the Helsinki group’s direction. Laber did not address this question;
instead she offered the puzzling thesis that Fishlow “did not initially compre-
hend how strong our international focus was, nor was he comfortable with
it.” Strange, too, was her contention that it was Fishlow himself who sud-
denly opted to leave: “Four months passed before Fishlow realized that he
was not the right person for the job. He left at the end of April [1979].” It
took four months? And the decision was his own? No one appears to have
raised the question of the Fishlow appointment until his name was men-
tioned in a Helsinki Watch report in late October, which announced his hir-
ing. The report noted that he and Laber were preparing a “revised
prospectus,” initially prepared by Neier and Schell. Certainly, that prospectus
had emphasized that the committee would be concerned with both domes-
tic and international affairs.
Equally odd, on January 26–27, 1979, shortly before the Ford
Foundation gave a huge grant to the Fund for Free Expression of four hun-
dred thousand dollars for two years, thereby recognizing and bringing into
active existence the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, Fishlow attended the
“Conference of the Preparatory Committee for the European Helsinki
Group” in Aarau, Switzerland, on behalf of the U.S. Helsinki group.31 His
attendance was in keeping with one of the principal purposes of the commit-
tee’s future operations: the creation and sustaining of Helsinki Watch Groups
in various Western European countries. Participants came to Aarau from a
half-dozen Western European groups. Also present were émigré representa-
tives from Helsinki human rights movements in Eastern Europe. Upon his
return from Europe, Fishlow reported that the conference had reinforced his
belief in the importance of forming an international network of citizens’
groups in order to prepare for Madrid. This was hardly the kind of perspec-
tive that suggested that he was less than enthusiastic about attention to inter-
national affairs. Laber, in her autobiography, makes no reference to this
meeting in January 1979, nor to Fishlow’s special interest in the human
rights aspect of international affairs.
Fishlow also reported that the participants in the Swiss conference lacked
the necessary “leadership credentials in their home countries to be effective.”
Instead, he believed the new U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee would have to
lead in organizing and coordinating the activities of Helsinki Watch Groups
in Western Europe and in establishing ties with appropriate groups in Eastern
Europe. This caveat was hardly an indication of an uninterested or indiffer-
ent professional who was anticipating departure.
Even before Fishlow’s visit to Switzerland, he showed keen interest in
whether the Ford Foundation trustees would support the Helsinki Watch
Committee. He called Felice Gaer on December 13, 1978, to pose this ques-
tion.32 She told him that the foundation trustees had “expressed a general
sense of enthusiasm for the venture.” As for details on the support question,
she suggested that Bernstein could ascertain answers from Bundy. Clearly, as
late as December, Fishlow’s interest in the future of the Watch Committee
was keen. And it remained so after his trip to Switzerland. On February 21,
1979, he formally wrote to the Ford Foundation, seeking an additional fifty

thousand dollars to cover the U.S. Helsinki Watch’s expenses until May
1979.33 Yet, two months later, Fishlow mysteriously left his committee job.
In fact, Fishlow did not leave voluntarily; nor did he suddenly come to the
realization that he was not fit for the job, as indicated in Laber’s autobiogra-
phy. The contrary is the case. According to a fairly detailed memo sent by
Bushey to Sutton on July 24, 1980, fourteen months later, Fishlow had been
fired. The pertinent section of Bushey’s memo reads as follows:
Bernstein hired a Committee staff director before functions and objectives

were defined. This proved harmful because he was a specialist on American
minority problems whereas the Committee subsequently developed largely
along international lines. As a result, conflict arose and the director was fired
several months after he began work—with considerable disruption of activities.
Bernstein then appointed Laber to the post.34
To the extent that the Ford Foundation engaged in the extraordinary task
of creating an NGO from scratch, it was hardly surprising that its principal
staffers would be in constant touch with Bernstein and his professional
staffers. Once the planning grant was given in June, Bushey and Gaer sought
to apprise Bundy of developments regarding the U.S. Helsinki Watch during
and after the summer. In an undated, very rough draft—a final draft has not
been located—they prepared a memo for Bundy that provided him with
some insights about the Helsinki Watch staff.35 In the judgment of Bushey
and Gaer, “very little was accomplished during the summer months.” This
was said to be partly due to vacations. More significantly, in their opinion,
was that committee staffer Jeri Laber was uncertain “about how to proceed.”
Especially striking were their views on Neier and Fishlow. The former was
said “to view” the proposed unfolding organization “as a mini-ACLU.” The
comments on Fishlow were much sharper: he was said to “view the organi-
zation as one which will principally raise domestically generated complaints
of violations to the U.S. Government in the context of the Helsinki act.” At
the same time, the committee would also “field foreign generated criticisms
of [human rights] violations.” Jeri Laber was also subjected to criticism as
someone with an “uncertain view of what the group [could] do.”
Nonetheless, she was expected “to focus on the international, specifically
East European and Soviet aspects.” If they found no fault with Bernstein
and, indeed, at times lauded him and his overall perspective, they remained
“struck by the strong emphasis” on domestic matters by his colleagues as
well as his lack of “expertise” with respect to the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe. In the view of Bushey and Gaer, “this needs further attention.”
Their comments suggested that they had erroneously mistaken Neier’s and
Fishlow’s views for those of Bernstein.
Laber, meanwhile, was certainly seeking to broaden her perspective. On
October 25–27, 1978, she visited Washington, DC, meeting separately with
seventeen high officials from the White House, the State Department, and
the U.S. Helsinki Commission, as well as with several NGO officials.36 Most
of the specialists with whom she met were either experts on the USSR or
dealt with human rights matters in Eastern Europe. What surprised her, and
pleasantly so, was that “the idea of monitoring domestic compliance under
the Helsinki framework [was] one that [seemed] to have come into its own
and [needed] no strong advocacy on our part.” The rationale for this view
was that the Carter Administration “[could not] continue to stress human
rights abroad without also showing support for what’s going on at home.”
But the question was less the engaging in domestic monitoring than the
question of how significant a priority it was to be given as compared with
international matters, specifically Soviet compliance. Laber’s memo failed to
comment on this point, although she quoted a former key official of
London’s Amnesty International, then working in Washington for that
NGO, Stephanie Grant, as recommending that the Watch Committee should
have “as narrow a focus as possible,” if it was to be effective. Still, everyone
of Laber’s interlocutors expressed a strong interest in and enthusiasm for the
creation of a U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee.
A week before her Washington trip, Laber met in New York with an NGO
specialist on the Helsinki process, Sidney Liskofsky of the American Jewish
Committee.37 In a report on October 10, 1978, that she made to her top
leadership and for the record, she related that Liskofsky urged her to make
sure that priority in international matters should be placed on political and
civil rights, rather than on economic and social rights. That type of priority
would ineluctably challenge the Kremlin and its satellites. It was evident that
Laber, as Gaer and Bushey recognized, was limited in her knowledge of
human rights generally, as well as of Soviet human rights issues specifically.
But she was determined to steep herself in the subject and she proved to be
a quick study.
By November 1978, it was clear to Bushey and Gaer that matters were
rapidly moving forward on the track that had been set forth by the Bundy-
Goldberg conversation and the subsequent April 5 meeting. The U.S.
Helsinki Watch Committee was emerging as other potential groups fell by
the wayside. A Planning Committee Board had been created, a prospective
for the organization drafted, and staffers appointed, even if serious and unre-
solved problems remained. At this stage, Bushey and Gaer wrote a memo to
Bundy dated November 3, 1978, that highlighted their own plans for the
next couple of months.
This memo was a remarkable document, illuminating how the Ford
Foundation functioned or planned to function in order to realize the pur-
pose it had set for itself.38 At the beginning of the memo, they revealed to
Bundy that they had talked with a sizable number of their “regular contacts”
in both the fields of human rights and East-West relations. What was patently
evident to the two professionals was that the new U.S. Helsinki Watch
Committee, on the board level, could encompass “star” figures, elite person-
alities from a variety of fields, but yet seriously lacked “the range of expertise
required to deal with complicated domestic and international issues raised by

the Final Act.” On the staff level, the same lack of expertise was painfully evi-
dent. Thus, Bushey and Gaer decided to compile a list of names of people
who would add to the “representative nature” of the committee members
that had been chosen by Bernstein. They also reported that they had begun
to draw up another list of “appropriate people” to work with the committee
as either “staff or as consultants on the international front.” Given Neier’s
and Fishlow’s experience with the ACLU, the need for consultants on
domestic affairs did not appear pertinent. Relevancy with respect to the inter-
national field, however, was urgent.
But it was not only the submission of names for the proposed U.S.
Helsinki Watch Committee and for its staff that Bushey and Gaer had been
preparing and thoroughly researching. They had also been seeking advice
about and evaluating the more substantive question of its “function and pri-
orities” and, of equal importance, the preparation of “a more fully developed
game plan” for the formal launching of the committee. In their view, “the
project could be significantly counter-productive if poorly designated.”
Precisely because the unveiling of an entirely new NGO was in the offing,
they considered that all the i’s should be dotted and the t’s should be
crossed, and that all the nuts and bolts should be in place. In their very
strong view that they placed before Bundy, they did not want “final deci-
sions” on committee composition and staff to be reached before tackling
details on the functions and priorities of the Watch Committee. More force-
ful was their recommendation that Bundy not appear before the Board of
Trustees to seek approval of a new human rights appropriation before a “fully
developed game plan” was decided upon.
After elaborating what they believed was needed to make a success of the
Helsinki Watch project, they proceeded to closely collaborate with Bernstein
and his colleagues through a series of meetings during the next few weeks.
They began with quite specific reviews with Bernstein’s group of the Helsinki
Final Act so as to determine which of its provisions were relevant and which
human rights issues required immediate attention. At the same time, they
sought to evaluate the connection between domestic and international mat-
ters, and to examine how human rights questions were linked to the Helsinki
Final Act as a whole. In short, what the Bushey-Gaer team was offering was
an overhaul of decisions and plans reached by the Bernstein group. At the
same time, they sought to provide the “plan” with a greater solidity and a
brighter sheen; if Galatea was being shaped by Pygmalion, she must have a
solid foundation.
Certainly, the work of these foundation staffers was unusual. Indeed, it
was even rare for the Ford Foundation in general. Creating a Pygmalion-type
NGO in the international affairs field marked a fairly revolutionary departure
for the foundation. Were Bundy to agree with their broad proposals, they
suggested that he advise Bernstein to temporarily delay issuing new invita-
tions to people to sit on the Watch Committee Board, a process already well
advanced. Precisely how Bundy reacted to the memo is not known. He may
have welcomed the suggestion of additional names for the committee. On
November 23, 1978, Gaer sent him, with copies for Bushey and Sutton, a list
of forty names that she and Bushey had prepared.39 The list included persons
“with specialized experience in East-West matters [and] international
affairs.” But close scrutiny of the Gaer list and its comparison with the orig-
inal Bernstein-Laber list shows that the proposed experts were not added to
those Bernstein had already chosen. Obviously, the “balance” Gaer and
Bushey sought that would provide the Watch committee with a more sea-
soned international human rights character was not reached. It was apparent
that whatever misgivings Bundy may have entertained, he was not prepared
to oppose choices made by someone like Bernstein, who was extremely
knowledgeable in the media field, and was of what can be called the elitist
orientation. Had Goldberg not made his pitch to Bundy exactly in terms of
media impact?
As Bundy chose not to override Bernstein’s decisions in terms of Planning
Board participants and committee staffing, he was even less inclined to
accept Bushey’s views on the need to work out in advance an overall strategy
and a detailed plan of action for the committee. In Bushey’s “final evalua-
tion” of the project for a U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, which he had sub-
mitted to Sutton in July 1980—some four months before the Madrid
follow-up meeting—he bitterly complained that Bernstein’s Fund for Free
Expression had not “addressed the hard questions” that the proposed
Helsinki Committee should address. In addition, the Bushey memo was full
of reproaches: that Bernstein’s staff appointments, first Fishlow, then Laber,
reflected poor judgment; that the selection of the fund itself as the vehicle for
the Watch Committee was questionable; that no “serious” thought had been
given to the Watch Committee’s “priorities”; and that even the very creation
of the Watch Committee was premature.
In his anger, Bushey disclosed how a major human rights decision was
reached during the Bundy administration. He said that it was Bundy himself
who “pushed ahead against our [staff] objections,” referring to the objec-
tions registered by Bushey and Gaer. Bushey went on to add that Bundy
approved the formation of the Helsinki Committee and, more importantly,
“made four hundred thousand dollars available to support its activities dur-
ing a two-year period.” That was a huge sum of money for an NGO, and an
amount extremely rare for a start-up project. Bushey concluded with an
angry denunciation of the original “planning grant” as a “dismal failure”
because no serious planning had taken place. In a kind of pathetic after-
thought, Bushey contended that the grant was “counterproductive in that it
led to a questionable use of a significant portion of our limited human rights
budget.” Oddly, almost childishly, he added, “I would not recommend the
grant again.” But the Bushey memo came almost a year after Bundy had
retired from the foundation. It was most unlikely that his decisions would
be reversed.
What had irritated Bushey more than anything was the failure of the top
Helsinki Watch officials to have prepared a serious strategic plan or to have
sought his assistance in preparing one. For Bundy, it was sufficient that
Bernstein had agreed to the objective. With the latter’s extensive experience
in dealing with the media on various levels, he could be trusted to develop
his own, perhaps unique, plan to affect public opinion on the Helsinki Final
Act. He could, after all, pick up the phone and call newspaper editors with
whom he had an established relationship, and lay the groundwork for
impacting public opinion.
But the episode also demonstrated how traditional processes in the Ford
Foundation could be bypassed by a strong and determined leader. Bundy was
all that plus extremely well-versed on Soviet communism. He had been, after
all, President Kennedy’s National Security Adviser, when the young presi-
dent was challenged and threatened by the Kremlin boss, Nikita Khrushchev.
And if the Helsinki Final Act was now a critical element in Soviet-American
relations, he would want to give his old colleague, Arthur Goldberg, the
strongest support. If it involved a huge foundation expenditure—a matter
about which Bushey was deeply suspicious—so be it.
The 1979 Annual Program Review of the Ford Foundation took special
pride in calling attention to the grant for Helsinki Watch. It was noted first
in the section dealing with “Human Rights and Intellectual Freedom”40
Two full paragraphs were devoted to the subject of the Helsinki Act, which
was characterized as “a milestone in East-West relations,” and to its human
rights features. All other grants were given no more than one paragraph each,
and in most cases, rather short paragraphs. A bit modestly, and somewhat
inaccurately, the review’s section read: “In the United States, a group of pri-
vate citizens has organized Helsinki Watch, Inc. to monitor U.S. compliance
and to call public attention to cases of official mistreatment of Watch groups
in other countries.” The implication that a private group of citizens took
matters into their own hands in organizing Helsinki Watch was rather wide
of the mark. It was the Ford Foundation president, having heard the plea of
Goldberg, who brought it into existence in January 1979 with a rather
remarkable grant of four hundred thousand dollars for a two-year period.
Examination of a listing of some twenty grants that year showed that the
indicated grant was far greater than any other grant, and twice the size of its
closest competitor.41
On the same wavelength of Bundy stood a longtime Ford Foundation
staffer and vice-president, Francis Sutton. Several months after the Helsinki
Watch Committee had received its historic grant, Sutton sent a memo to
Bushey and Gaer reporting on two private meetings with Bernstein that
occurred during the week of April, 1980, before and after a U.S. Helsinki
Watch board meeting.42 Sutton’s report, rich in detail and nuance though
not always in personality evaluation and policy assessment, reflected a general
enthusiasm about Bernstein. The Random House publisher had reported to
Sutton about a meeting he and his Helsinki Watch Committee associates had
had with a former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, William Scranton,

who had been appointed by President Carter to replace Goldberg as head of
the U.S. delegation. Scranton impressed Bernstein. To Sutton, the Helsinki
Watch Committee chief was “excited” by his conversation with Scranton and
“looked forward to a valuable collaboration with Scranton in planning for
the Madrid review conference.” Disappointment, however, immediately fol-
lowed, as Scranton was obliged to resign for health reasons.
Bernstein went on to tell Sutton about Max Kampelman, who would ulti-
mately replace Scranton. Actually, the replacement was to have been Griffin
Bell, Carter’s Attorney General, with Kampelman serving as his deputy.
But soon after the Madrid session began, Bell resigned and Kampelman
took over. Interestingly, Sutton reported that Bernstein reacted to the
Kampelman appointment “without enthusiasm” and that, after Sutton him-
self heard Kampelman at the Watch Committee’s Board meeting, he said he
shared “Bernstein’s disappointment.” The negative comments about
Kampelman by both Bernstein and Sutton were surprising, to say the least.
Kampelman was an extraordinarily articulate international lawyer, negotiator,
and strategist. He turned out to be as committed to human rights as Arthur
Goldberg was, but far more diplomatically skillful in winning over Western
European and neutral statesmen. There was no indication in the memo by
Sutton as to the reasons for his and Bernstein’s negative view of Kampelman.
Sutton also appeared to welcome Bernstein’s comments about a critical
essay prepared for the Helsinki Watch Committee by University of Illinois
professor Maurice Friedberg on Soviet book publishing. Sutton reported
that Bernstein was “enthusiastic” about it. The Ford Foundation executive,
in contrast, while finding it “a very useful contribution,” observed that it
could not be considered a “distinguished piece of writing.” The essay is not
known to have exerted an impact either on the deliberations of Madrid or in
any releases of the Helsinki Watch Committee.
If the reaction to Bernstein was positive, Sutton was less so about other
reports at the Watch Committee’s Board meeting. He found Jeri Laber’s
report on pre-Helsinki activities by NGOs in Western Europe “discourag-
ing.” Little existed in the “private sector” in Western Europe that made for
“obvious collaboration,” although Sutton suspected that Laber had “not
contacted” those who might turn out to be “significant groups.” The char-
acterization of Western European NGOs with respect to human rights was
similar to comments about governments in Western Europe made at the
meeting by Ambassador Roz Ridgway, who was Assistant Secretary of State
for European and Canadian Affairs. She was reported as saying that
Europeans in general “were now much more interested in security than
pressing human rights issues.” Preoccupation with security would lead to
hesitancy to engage in vigorous actions to respond to Soviet military moves.
At the time, plans for U.S. emplacement of cruise missiles in strategic places
in Western Europe were being weighed. Precisely because of European con-
cerns, it was difficult to play the delicate game of balancing security matters
against human rights. If such balance stood at the heart of the Helsinki
accords, preoccupation with security meant that balance no “longer seems to
prevail,” according to Ridgway, as reported by Sutton.
Sutton, himself, had come to the conclusion that, given little movement
on either side with respect to security issues, “it [was] difficult to see where
there might be leverage on human rights issues.” It was an extremely percep-
tive observation. Ineluctably, the issue was posed as to whether U.S. Helsinki
Watch should become preoccupied with security issues. A committee leader
was cited as saying that Helsinki Watch should not become involved because
“they had no competence in the area [of security].” Sutton concluded that if
the Helsinki Watch was “not equipped to think in these strategic terms,
someone else ought to be.” He was right, of course. That “someone” would
turn out to be Kampelman and his successor (at Vienna, 1986–89), Warren
Zimmermann. Kampelman and Zimmermann would use sophisticated diplo-
macy to make significant human rights progress, especially later, during
1988–89. Sutton agreed, however, that a “calculated general strategy” cov-
ering security matters was not the bailiwick of Helsinki Watch. Diplomatic
sophistication at Madrid would not necessarily have produced “significant
results” in human rights. A similar view was advanced by David Heaps in a
letter to Bernstein.
What was required of the Helsinki Watch Committee was to press ahead
at Madrid in support of human rights. And, needless to say, this support had
to be vigorously extended to similar Helsinki Watch groups throughout
Eastern Europe, like Solidarity and Charter 77. This course was endorsed by
Sutton. For the foundation executive, the Helsinki Watch Committee had to
remain involved even if no progress was imminent or could quickly be
achieved. Breakthroughs in international affairs during short stretches are
not easily achievable. Sutton could not but think of progress over the
long haul.
Bernstein, too, was absorbed in the question of the committee’s contin-
ued existence. “The most important question” that he had asked Sutton, as
recorded by the latter, dealt “with the future of Helsinki Watch.” Bernstein,
during the course of their personal conversation, sought to ascertain whether
the foundation would be “receptive to a proposal for continuation after the
present grant runs out sometime in 1981.” Sutton answered that it would
depend on three considerations. The first involved how the Helsinki Final
Act would be viewed after Madrid—what “significance” would it have?
Second was the question of whether Helsinki Watch would also appear to the
foundation to be “significant.” Third, budgetary considerations had to be
taken into account. The Sutton memo did not offer a definitive answer, nor
could it. After all, an extraordinarily heavy investment had gone into the newly
created NGO. Any structure required time to leave its mark.
It was at the Madrid follow-up meeting of CSCE that the foundation’s
U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee made its entry onto the international scene.
The impact, while hardly world-shaking, would nonetheless, be felt in both
governmental circles and in the nongovernment community. The context

was quite appropriate. An entire city had become a centerpiece for the pro-
motion of human rights issues.
How Madrid appeared on the opening day of the Helsinki conference,
November 11, 1980, was powerfully captured in Le Monde with the mar-
velously descriptive phrase, “city of dissidence.”43 The Spanish capital had
become a magnet for dissidents and democratic activists from every part of
Eastern Europe, along with their human rights champions and advocates in
the West. Wives and relatives of Soviet “prisoners of conscience” and
refuseniks mingled with representatives of Western nongovernmental human
rights organizations in rallies, demonstrations, press conferences, and
mini–review sessions. Displays and leaflets, films and posters, and books and
recordings were everywhere. The corridors of the building where the
Helsinki sessions took place and the halls of nearby hotels were sites for hur-
ried press conferences given by, for example, Nina Lagergren (the half sister
of Raoul Wallenberg) and Anatoly Shcharansky’s wife, Avital.44
Especially active in arranging for the public exposure of Soviet and Eastern
European activists who were present was U.S. Helsinki Watch, which leased
office space and staffed it with a highly skilled professional, who assisted Jeri
Laber as well as her associates when they appeared at intervals from New
York or elsewhere. Though only a year old, U.S. Helsinki Watch already was
functioning with considerable effectiveness in lobbying CSCE delegations,
providing well-researched documentation on human rights violations to the
hundreds of media correspondents who had descended upon Madrid, and
hosting NGO representatives from the communist world. To a far greater
degree than the meeting in Belgrade, where the first Helsinki conference was
held, Madrid had become the stage for grand human rights theater. One rea-
son for this was its accessibility; the city was close to most Western countries
and to various NGOs’ headquarters. A second reason was the strong demo-
cratic character of Spanish society and the Spanish government in contrast to
Yugoslavia, where a certain arbitrariness befitting an authoritarian regime
made for caution and restraint in any public display of support for human
rights. A third reason was the Western public reaction to Moscow’s repres-
sion of the several Helsinki Watch groups.45 Of the seventy-one individuals
who comprised the half-dozen Helsinki monitoring groups in the USSR,
twenty-four had been tried and found guilty, with nineteen of them serving
a total of 156 years in forced labor or internal exile.
Responsiveness to NGO pressures and activism on the part of Western
governments was extraordinary. At Belgrade, not a single Western European
delegation had chosen to enter into a direct confrontation with the USSR or
with its Warsaw Pact allies. Madrid marked a historic breakthrough and set a
totally new standard. Never in a formal international setting had so many
countries raised details of human rights violations. Nine Western delegations
raised questions about various aspects of the Soviet treatment of Jews. This
was totally unprecedented. One NATO country—Belgium—took the risk of
openly accusing Moscow of anti-Semitism. As for the United States, it raised

some sixty-five Eastern European cases during the first six-week period and
nearly 250 more during the course of the Madrid meeting, which ended in
September, 1983.
Lobbying at CSCE meetings was but one of the U.S. Helsinki Watch
activities. Other functions were also seen as especially crucial. The new group
was to “establish liaison” with Helsinki Watch groups in other countries or in
exile. It also was to “encourage the formation of such Committees in any of
the signatory countries where no such group presently exists.” The vision of
Arthur Goldberg, the former Supreme Court Justice, and the hope of the
Ford Foundation were not misplaced. With its careful research findings,
always meticulously checked before publication, U.S. Helsinki Watch
became a major source of information and documentation to the media in
the United States and abroad.46 It also became a leading protector of the
Eastern European monitoring groups by issuing a flurry of press releases
when these groups appeared to be in jeopardy. From the perspective of the
monitors—whether Charter 77 or the Moscow Helsinki Watch, the NGO in
the USSR—the Bernstein group in New York became an invaluable source of
moral support that helped sustain them during their most trying periods.
In changing strongly held anti-Helsinki perceptions in America and in
impacting NGOs in Eastern Europe, leading to the revolutions in 1989–90,
U.S. Helsinki Watch, which began operating only in 1979, could claim con-
siderable credit. Its executive director, Jeri Laber, undertook an unusually
large number of personal missions to Eastern Europe, visiting with NGO
activists in Moscow, Prague, Budapest, and Warsaw, and even in Bucharest
and East Berlin, where the secret police regimes were strong. Her diary
shows that between September 1979 and June 1990, she made four trips to
Moscow, nine to Prague, four to Budapest, six to Warsaw, and one each to
Bucharest and East Berlin.47 On the one hand, she gave the activists a sense
that important NGO groups in the West were deeply concerned about their
condition and welfare. On the other hand, Laber’s talents as a writer enabled
her to communicate through articles and Op-Ed essays to the American pub-
lic the character and extent of repression that these activists faced.
A sampling of these essays in major newspapers and in the New York
Review of Books illustrates how she sensitized the West about the problems of
freedom that confronted the Eastern European NGOs. In a July 1980 arti-
cle in the New York Times entitled, “Moscow vs. Rights,” Laber described a
meeting she had had the previous autumn in Andrei Sakharov’s apartment
with the twelve members of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group who, while
still “plucky,” were “dispirited” by the “severe harassment” to which they
were being subjected. In the article, she chastised a high State Department
official who had urged that the U.S. diplomatic stance at the forthcoming
Madrid meeting in November 1980 should be one of cooperation rather
than confrontation. “To what end?” she asked. Instead, she recommended
that the United States “demand that the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia
release their imprisoned Helsinki monitors as well as countless others being

punished for their religious or political beliefs.”48
The following year, writing in the Washington Post, t Laber described an
earlier private meeting in a restaurant at the Moscow Book Fair where Soviet
dissident writers had gathered to advise her of the continuing ruthless
suppression of free expression.49 Soon afterward, Laber chronicled, with
acute perceptivity and photos, visits with key NGOs in Warsaw, Prague, and
Budapest. The human rights climate in Warsaw at the time was as “unbeliev-
ably bleak” as the weather, for it was characterized by beatings of Solidarity
activists, arrests, and punitive harassments. In Prague, she learned how the
regime was “apparently trying to wipe out its disaffected intelligentsia once
and for all.” In Budapest, where a “goulash communism” prevailed, arbi-
trariness was far less apparent and the activists could express dissent provided
it did not target the Communist Party or the Soviet Union. What especially
struck Laber’s keen political eye in 1981 was that “the Soviet Union’s East
European empire [was] crumbling” even if, as she wrote, “the disintegration
will not happen overnight.”50
Of particular importance was the decision in 1982 by U.S. Helsinki Watch
to create, with the assistance of the Ford Foundation, similar Helsinki NGOs
in a number of European countries, in both the West and the East. Jeri Laber
spent most of the year traveling in Europe for that purpose, which was a
“turning point” in the history of the Helsinki NGO movement, she later
said.51 What would emerge by late 1987 was the International Helsinki
Federation (IHF), headquartered in Vienna and comprising groups in the
Netherlands, the Nordic countries, Austria, Switzerland, Poland,
a Czechoslova-
kia, Slovenia, and the United States. By 1988, the IHF was functioning as an
effective coordinating instrument for raising consciousness about human
rights. Its former director, Lotte Leicht, a Danish lawyer, observed that the
international NGO’s purpose was to make sure “that there [would] never
be an excuse that we didn’t know.”52 The central lesson of the Holocaust
clearly had been driven home. Sharing information on human rights viola-
tions, together with lobbying, was the organization’s purpose. For documen-
tation and studies, the IHF would rely on U.S. Helsinki Watch.
At the beginning of the Helsinki process, governments were perceived as
the sole actors in what was essentially a forum of interstate diplomacy. If the
Helsinki Final Act made several references to NGOs, particularly to their role
in science and technology, environmental protection, human contacts, cul-
ture, and education, they still were viewed as but tangential and incidental
to the process. But, by the end of 1991, the Foreign Minister of Norway,
Thorwald Stoltenberg, would say that the CSCE was a process involving the
interaction of governments with NGOs. The latter, he stressed, “are an
important repository of insights, expertise and experience.”53 If building dem-
ocratic institutions, Stoltenberg went on, was to be “a priority task of the
CSCE,” then this purpose could be greatly facilitated by constructive use of
NGO resources.
To a great extent, the lobbying work, whether through personal contacts

or indirectly though articles in major media organs, was achieved by Laber,
although she was significantly assisted by the research talents of Catherine
Fitzpatrick, the Helsinki Watch research director, who was fluent in Russian.
In the spring of 1981, once Americas Watch was created and funded by the
Ford Foundation, Aryeh Neier became her boss. He had assumed an official
position with both Watch Committees as vice-chairman. While regretting the
loss of her “independent” status, she nonetheless found her working rela-
tionship with Neier a satisfactory one as he “spent most of his time planning
for Americas Watch—meeting key people in the field [and] raising money.”54
With the revolutionary developments in Eastern Europe during 1989,
especially in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary, the U.S. Helsinki Watch
Committee could derive solid gratification and would be accorded special
recognition by the new president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel. Laber had
spent much time in that republic, meeting with its most famous dissenter,
and even on one occasion was actually arrested herself. When President Havel
came on an official visit to the United States, he made it a priority to visit, on
February 22, 1990, the office of U.S. Helsinki Watch in mid-Manhattan.
Invited guests of the American NGO who also came were representatives
of the Polish Solidarity movement along with Yuri Orlov, the founder of
Moscow’s Helsinki Watch. As reported by the New York Times the next day,
the moment of Havel’s arrival was “one of high emotion” in which he was
“particularly moved.” His words in the charged atmosphere would not eas-
ily be forgotten by Laber and the other guests. He said, “I feel I’m here as a
friend among friends. I know what you did for us and perhaps, without you
our revolution would not be.” The remembrance of things past was stirringly
powerful. Several months earlier Laber had received from Havel and his vice-
president, Karl Schwarzenberg, a fax recalling how only a year earlier she had
been arrested for meeting with Charter 77 leaders. The fax went on to say,
“we would like to thank you for everything you did for us.”55
Realists among statesmen and scholars were rarely given to praise of
NGOs Realpolitik was not oriented in that direction. But an arch-exponent
of this perspective would have a change of heart. Henry A. Kissinger, in his
earlier volumes about his White House years in the late sixties and seventies
as well as in his various essays during that time frame, made not a single ref-
erence to human rights or to those provisions of the Helsinki Final Act in
which human rights was a centerpiece. And although he uttered not a word
about NGOs, as if they were a totally alien element in international discourse,
Kissinger’s later study, Diplomacy, revealed a remarkable change of heart.56
For the first time, his work offered an unexpected and uncharacteristic after-
thought. Kissinger now acknowledged that Basket 3 (which he earlier had
never even noticed in his writing) turned out to be “most significant” and
“was destined to play a major role in the disintegration of the Soviet satellite
orbit.” He went on to add the startlingly unbecoming comment that Basket
3 “became a testimonial to all human rights activists in NATO countries.” It
was these human rights activists, he suddenly recognized, “who deserve trib-
ute,” for it was “the pressures which they exerted” that hastened the end of
totalitarian rule. Especially accorded praise were the “heroic reformers in
Eastern Europe”—the NGOs of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary—who
used Basket 3 as “a rallying point” in their struggle against “Soviet domina-
tion.” He made no specific reference to U.S. Helsinki Watch, but Vaclav
Havel, it could be said, did it for him.
What was accomplished by U.S. Helsinki Watch in Poland and Czecho-
slovakia could not, of course, be achieved in the Soviet Union itself. The very
nature of its totalitarian structure, hardened by a half-century of Stalinist and
post-Stalinist rule, could and did prevent the emergence of broadly based,
popular NGOs. Yet, the Moscow Helsinki Watch of Yuri Orlov, aided by
Andrei Sakharov, did lay a modest foundation. And U.S. Helsinki Watch
served as its vigorous adviser and supporter lobbying with U.S. policy-mak-
ers at CSCE meetings, resulting in a serious weakening in the public arena of
Soviet power. Significantly, at the crucial review meetings of CSCE, Yuri
Orlov, who was appointed to the honorary position of vice-chairman of U.S.
Helsinki Watch, was honored at meetings of the U.S. delegation.
Once the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, largely a conse-
quence of economic contradictions and corruption, members of the Moscow
Helsinki group and similar groups in various formerSoviet republics provided
an ongoing encouragement of reform. Sakharov became an active member of
the Russian Parliament and vigorously espoused human rights and demo-
cratic causes. Orlov’s closest colleague in the Moscow group, Ludmilla
Alexeyeva, spent several years with U.S. Helsinki Watch, advising its profes-
sionals on strategy. When the Soviet Union itself collapsed, she returned to
Russia and became a leading activist for human rights causes. Strikingly, she
continued to guide the Moscow Helsinki Watch. It was by no means the end
of the U.S. Helsinki Watch story. By the early nineties, it would enlarge itself
to become Human Rights Watch, having created and added branches in
Africa, Asia, and the Middle East (Americas Watch had already been estab-
lished in 1981).
When the enormously enlarged Human Rights Watch took on a global
human rights reach in 1990, sharp contradictions ineluctably emerged. Adm-
inistrative deficiencies shot to the surface and staff charges severely chal-
lenged a weakened central operation. The staff disarray focused upon the
executive director, Aryeh Neier. Bitter recriminations raised uncertainties
about the future of the organization.
Once again, the Ford Foundation provided the valuable hand, recom-
mending the Management Assistance Group of Washington, DC, headed by
Susan Gross and Michael Clark. It offered detailed advice on how to restore
administrative efficiency through an extensive series of reforms, after the tar-
geted Neier resigned in 1992. The result of the management survey of 1993
and its detailed recommendations left in place the most powerful human rights
NGO in the international community. Recognition of the foundation’s role
came in a letter by the new executive director of Human Rights Watch,

Kenneth Roth, to a high foundation official, Shepard Forman. Dated June
16, 1995, it expressed “appreciation for the pivotal role played by the Ford
Foundation in bringing about the MAG [management] process that had led
to these . . . reforms.”57
Chapter 6
Th e “Fo u n d at i o n f o r E u r o pe a n
I n t e l l e c t ua l C o o pe r at i o n”
I n the same year that U.S. Helsinki Watch was created, another NGO funded
by the Ford Foundation was being formally established in Paris, France, and,
similar to Helsinki Watch, was to focus upon the non-Soviet communist
countries in Eastern Europe. Significant differences characterized the two
operations. While the first was designed to maximize public attention upon
how the human rights provisions incorporated in the recently adopted Helsinki
Final Act were being violated by the communist regimes, the Paris-based
operation totally avoided all public attention to what it was doing and,
indeed, what was occurring in the area. In fact, the NGO, unlike virtually any
NGO in the Western world, was designed to operate in as quiet and unpub-
lic a manner as possible.
The organization was the Fondation Pour Une Entr’aide Intellectuelle
Europenne. Its title in English would be the Foundation for European Int-
ellectual Cooperation, and its acronym, which will be used throughout this
chapter, would be FEIE. Its function was to sustain and inspire democratic
and human rights thought among Eastern European intellectuals in the face
of a deadening repression by forwarding them books, journals, and poetry,
and arranging for grants to enable them to travel and visit Western Europe.
The task, although shrouded in silence, was extraordinary and would play a
significant role in the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe outside of the
Soviet Union.
Once the revolutions had taken place in 1989 and extended to the Soviet
Union in 1991, the leading figures in FEIE had concluded, according to
Margo Picken of the Ford Foundation, that “a public record of the organiza-
tion’s work should be assembled and a scholarly account of its activities pre-
pared.”1 In the judgment of the Ford Foundation staff, “a history of FEIE
could be a significant contribution to the political and intellectual history of
Eastern Europe following World War II.”2 Francis Sutton would later recall
that the foundation official in charge of human rights programming, Shepard
Forman, was the initial and principal advocate of the project.3
Picken formally submitted the staff recommendation for a foundation

grant to hire a specialist to write the history of FEIE. A request for fifty thou-
sand dollars was submitted to President Susan Berresford through Forman
and other top staffers on February 1, 1991. Eighteen months would be
allotted for the proposed author to complete the study. The funds were to
be channeled through the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria,
which was to supervise the preparation of the study.4 Hired to prepare the
work was a Polish social scientist, Marek Beylin, who, since 1978, had been
the co-editor of a leading Polish intellectual journal, Krytyka. According to
Sutton, he had been recommended by the top official of FEIE, Annette
Laborey,5 and was enthusiastically endorsed by a leading intellectual figure
of the Solidarity movement, Adam Michnik, who, in 1991, was editor-in-
chief of the Warsaw Gazeta.6
Beylin completed the manuscript of 132 pages in 1994, but, unfortu-
nately, it was not deemed adequate for publication, and the project was, in
Sutton’s formulation, “aborted.”7 He then added that Laborey had “got
the wrong fellow to do the history.” Sutton, who served on a five-member
Advisory Board to guide the study (along with several respected French his-
torians), recommended against publication in a letter to Picken on December
20, 1994.8 In his letter, Sutton commented, “[Beylin] is not a historian . . .
and is altogether too casual about dates and references.” More appropriately,
he found the manuscript’s analysis of the significance of FEIE to be exces-
sively “vague and impressionistic.”
Nonetheless, Sutton found much of value in the Beylin manuscript. He
thought highly of Beylin’s characterization of “the special quality” of FEIE’s
“operation under Annette’s management.” And he strongly welcomed Beylin’s
“perceptions of East European attitudes towards détente and the choices of
policy” that FEIE “struggled” to make in the 1970s and 1980s. While stress-
ing at the beginning of his letter that Beylin’s work was not “devoid of
merit,” Sutton concluded that what was needed was someone “to deal with
the broader history in a large-spirited way.”9 The following closing comment
by Margo Picken in her formal summary and assessment of the project ran
along quite similar lines:
In retrospect, the task Marek Beylin was asked to carry out was probably too
vast, requiring a deeper and broader knowledge and understanding of post
World War II of Europe than he could be expected to have.
Precisely because of the considerable value of the Beylin manuscript as the

only history available of the remarkable FEIE operation, the author has cho-
sen to tap its revelations and analyses. Indeed, this course was strongly rec-
ommended by Sutton in his letter to the author. Publication of the material
that was found in the Ford Foundation Archives provides a rare insight into
an especially rare NGO.
FEIE, although it was an almost totally unknown organization publicly,
had a prehistory, under a different name, going back to 1956.10 The Congress
The “Foundation for European Intellectual Cooperation” 121
for Cultural Freedom, which was provided at the time with a limited amount
of Ford Foundation funding for specific anticommunist intellectual publica-
tions, established the Committee of Writers and Publishers for European
Cooperation. As early as June 1950, at the historic founding of the Congress,
a resolution was adopted that pledged moral support “to writers and artists”
behind the Iron Curtain “who[asserted] their right to freedom.”11 Some fif-
teen thousand persons had gathered in a public park in the British section
of Berlin for a final day of rallying at a time when the cold war was heating
up with great intensity. Approximately one hundred top-level intellectuals
and authors had drafted an anticommunist “Freedom Manifesto.” The famed f
author of Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, addressing the crowd, cried,
“Freedom has seized the initiative.”
Two years after the resolution was adopted, the Congress for Cultural
Freedom moved to implement the resolution. The question arose as to who
would develop the means for implementation of the resolution and formu-
late the strategy for giving effect to it. That person was Konstantin A. Jelenski,
who was of Polish nobility origins and whose close contacts as well as knowl-
edge about the intelligentsia of Poland were believed to be unequalled.
Jelenski correctly assumed that what the intellectuals of Poland and other
countries in Eastern Europe were seeking was access to important books and
articles published in the West. Censorship in the East was a difficult obstacle
to overcome, and it was Jelenski’s task to frustrate as much as possible the
censors. He developed what would eventually become an elaborate program
for sending in publications containing the most creative thinking on varying
subjects in the West. The object of the planned mailing procedures was to
overcome or bypass censorship and prevent the possible persecution of the
addressee. In developing his approach, Jelenski could take advantage of
the objective situation, which had been significantly eased by the death
of Josef Stalin on March 5, 1953, and the resulting era of “the Thaw” that
followed. Jelenski could now improvise the operation of a Committee of
Writers and Publishers.
The authority on the cultural congress, Peter Coleman, elaborated upon
the methods used by Jelenski.12 One proposed method was to send the books
as donations to libraries, bookshops, publishers, and newspapers. Articles and
poetry were to be sent in the form of private letters and posted from differ-
ent places to a very large number of addressees regardless of their differing
professed views. Should it be known that a recipient was in need of medica-
tion, the plan called for the sending of parcels including medicine. Care was
especially taken by Jelenski to avoid the sending of individual books to those
who did not request them. Even if “the Thaw” characterized the atmosphere
as a whole, the beneficiary was not to be subject to a possible compromising
situation. The program for Central and Eastern Europe also had a certain
philanthropic cast. In the event that an individual member of the intelli-
gentsia was plagued by financial problems, assistance would be provided by
the Congress, but it would be done so deliberately without informing the
beneficiary of the source of the assistance.
The Jelenski program would also help writers who had been banned by
state publications to find publishers in the West, particularly through Kultura,
a Polish-language publication in Paris. As an alternative for poets, Jelenski
arranged for their work to be published in an anthology of Polish poetry that
he edited. Artists could be assisted by having their paintings, which were often
abstract in content, shown at the Galerie Lambert in the French capital.
Special attention, not surprisingly, was focused by Jelenski upon the Polish
intelligentsia, whether they were dissenters or apolitical. Stipends were given
to writers, scholars, and artists. Should an intellectual seek to attend an insti-
tution or festival in the West, the Congress would arrange for appropriate
invitations to be sent and provide for anonymous donors to cover the costs.
The editor of the Congress publication, Survey, Leopold Labedz, pointed
out how this aspect of the program was a potent factor “in extending the
knowledge (of the Polish intellectual elite) and widening their horizons.”13
If Poland was the primary target of the Jelenski initiative, Hungarian
intellectuals did not lag far behind. Jelenski also provided assistance to
East German refugees who had fled to Berlin. They were cared for in an East
German Refugee Centre located in Berlin. No inroads were yet made else-
where in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe—Czechoslovakia, Romania, and
Bulgaria. In each of these countries, the influence of the police was every-
where. Repression remained a palpable reality. As for the intelligentsia of the
Soviet Union, efforts to establish a continuing direct contact failed, although
the work of dissident Soviet writers would be published. Given the rigidity
and omnipresence of Soviet state power, it was hardly surprising that direct
contacts were almost totally excluded.
That the Ford Foundation would be especially interested in supporting
the Jelenski operation was self-evident. It was, after all, geared to the intelli-
gentsia, a stratum of society upon which the foundation had, from the begin-
ning, placed primary emphasis. And Jelenski’s project was oriented to the
spread of ideas and information, cardinal aims of the foundation. While
the foundation did not become an active source of funds for the Congress for
Cultural Freedom until 1953—several years after the Congress was created,
and then largely in order to support certain intellectual publications of the
Congress, like Der Monat and Encounter—the r unpublicized program for
assisting Eastern European intellectuals appeared especially attractive,
t although
the program had begun before the foundation became initially involved.
Once, however, the Congress had been publicly exposed as a large-scale
recipient of CIA financing, and decisions were taken for it to go out of busi-
ness and be replaced in 1966 by the International Association for Cultural
Freedom (IACF), the Ford Foundation came to be directly involved in its
financing. The issue arose of how to deal with the Jelenski operation,
which had functioned under the Congress’s direction as Writers and
Publishers for European Cooperation. Jelenski, at this point, arranged to
have his own operation formally incorporated in 1966 in Switzerland as a
successor to the writers and publishers’ group. Nonetheless, for the time
being, the Jelenski operation acquired the formal status of an autonomous

affiliate of IACF. The future of IACF, however, was quite uncertain, given
the damage that had been wrought by revelations about CIA financing of its
predecessor, as well as the economic difficulties that arose for the foundation
during the seventies.
How was the operation to be administered? What was its relationship to
be under the overall IACF? The gifted David Heaps, who at the time was
administering the foundation’s office in Paris, had undertaken a review of
IACF’s policies and programs in several areas and found them inadequate,
especially in its Eastern European program.14 Of critical concern to both
Jelenski and the foundation leadership was the attitude of younger intellec-
tuals in Eastern Europe who, like the younger generation of American intel-
lectuals (as well as Western European intellectuals), were shocked by the
press disclosures about the CIA intervention in IACF’s predecessor, the
Congress for Cultural Freedom. This hostility was profoundly intensified by
America’s continued involvement in Vietnam, which found little sympathy
among European intellectuals as well as among American intellectuals.
How this impacted upon younger Eastern European intellectuals was
especially noted by the principal advocate and organizer of the Eastern
European program from the very beginning, Konstantin Jelenski. He
observed, with a stern realism, “nearly all our most active associates and
friends are over 50 years old.”15 A new mood, he indicated, had taken hold
among the younger intellectuals that looked upon the cold war with a certain
disdain and contempt. No longer did anti-totalitarianism serve as a driving
moral force, although repression of the movement of ideas and people, as
articulated by the Helsinki Final Act, certainly did. At a local meeting of
IACF leadership in October 1973, difficulties were expressed about the
effort “to bring younger people into the organization.”16 One of the leaders
said that IACF was “in danger of becoming a shrinking band.”
In this context, a recommendation made to Francis Sutton by David
Astor, the prominent British publisher, was intriguing. While analyzing the
former role of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the foundation executive
recalled that Astor proposed that the foundation, itself, undertake directly
the handling of Eastern Europe activities. Such a direct go-it-alone policy
was negatively regarded by Sutton. He wrote, “I find the argument persua-
sive that in places like Eastern Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, or other places
in the world, there are functions that we ought to support but cannot com-
fortably do so directly.” He then recalled a July 1966 memorandum from
Champion Ward, a high foundation official, that articulated, “a certain ten-
sion between activities supported indirectly through an organization like the
Congress and our own direct operations may exist in some parts of the
world.” In his opinion, while such tensions “ought to be tolerated,” they
ought not necessarily be acted upon. In general, the foundation would opt
for use of one or another nongovernmental organization, rather than for its
open and direct involvement. An additional point was made by Sutton. He
said that officials of the Congress for Cultural Freedom had told him that
most of the intellectuals from Eastern Europe were already in contact with
Congress officials and would “unlikely be reached” by other organizations
through which they were not perceived as strongly “committed” to the intel-
lectual interest of Eastern Europe as the Congress had been.
Increasingly, during the early seventies, it became evident to Ford
Foundation officials, especially to the head of its Paris office, David Heaps
(who would later play an extraordinarily prominent role in Latin American
affairs), that the IACF, the Congress’s successor, was losing its earlier impact
in Europe. In his report to foundation headquarters in New York on August
9, 1974, he wrote, “[the IACF] is no longer . . . one of the institutions active
in the field.”17 Apparently, someone at foundation headquarters had already
taken note of the IACF weakness, and Heaps sought to reinforce the same
view. He went on to add, “it has unfortunately done little of an overt
nature to expose or even raise governmental abuses of human rights.” Of
notable interest was Heaps’ reference to “human rights,” a phrase earlier not
used in foundation reports. After the Chilean experience of 1973, the phrase
suddenly shot to the fore everywhere, including in Europe.
FEIE, of course, had something to contribute to advancing human rights,
although, quite appropriately, given the political circumstances of the times,
it did so as silently and nonpublicly as possible. Not surprisingly, the tougher
anticommunists in the IACF, like Alan Bullock and Shepard Stone, viewed
FEIE as a “bastion” of “liberals.”18 That the conflict, in its perception of dif-
ferences, would lead to a rupture was inevitable. With the deepening distrust
in rightist IACF circles of Charles de Gaulle and his hostile policy toward the
United States and Britain, it was not surprising that Gaullist France was
increasingly seen “as a weak point on the anti-communist map.”19 This neg-
ative view of France could not fail to spill over onto Jelenski as well as the
head of IACF, Pierre Emmanuel, who were viewed as part of the “leftist Paris
elites,” to which, in fact, they belonged.
The Ford Foundation’s representative in Paris, Heaps, could hardly escape
the internal IACF controversy and its relationship to FEIE. Heaps, in a report
to his headquarters on September 16, 1975, took note of a bitter hostility on
the part of the old IACF toward FEIE. It had become evident to him that
the older generation of liberals in the organization “no longer [were] seri-
ously interested in the IACF . . . and even [were] actively hostile to it for rea-
sons of ideology and past history.”20 And this same suspicion extended to
younger Western European scholars and intellectuals. Heaps had heard
reports that he quoted in his memo to headquarters about the “gradual evap-
oration of the soul of the [IACF] organization.” Moreover, in his view, the
organization “no longer [seemed] terribly relevant to the preoccupations
and concerns of a new generation of scholars and intellectuals.” At the same
time, the older generation, he found, “[was] now tired and aging.” Heaps con-
cluded that he “did not see how it could be reconstituted in its old image.”
The focus of attention, inevitably, was upon FEIE and its separation from
IACF. Jelenski was in the forefront of those who sought to facilitate the
separation and, if possible, upgrade the independence of FEIE. As early as

1970, he had projected the kind of work that the foundation would ulti-
mately assume as follows:
It entails all those intellectuals in the West who turn to us whenever they want
to send a book to the East or help a colleague in one of these countries to get
a stipend in the West. It entails—first and foremost—all those writers, artists,
intellectuals in the East who think of us as personal friends who are ready—and
to some extent equipped—to help them to read, to travel, to publish abroad.21
Disputes within the Ford Foundation were intense as to the question of

IACF’s survival and the separate survival of FEIE. Intimately related to the
question of survival was the placement of the European office of IACF.
Should it be kept in Paris, or, as some wished for a variety of reasons, should
it move to either Germany or Britain? Personal animosities aggravated the
tension between IACF and FEIE. At stake was FEIE’s credibility among intel-
lectual circles in both the West and East and, equally important, the accept-
ability of its quiet, nonpolitical strategy by communist authorities. Sharp
debates took place over the issue between Emmanuel, who had become pres-
ident of IACF, and Jelenski.
Emmanuel had come to the conclusion that FEIE should be dumped and
IACF preserved. Even as he developed this idea in a letter dated December
3, 1974, he still pushed to preserve FEIE’s special cultural program in
Eastern Europe. Jelenski responded on the same day with his own memoran-
dum. As he had been the one who developed the idea for creating FEIE in the
first place, and had become its patron in Eastern Europe, it was quite appro-
priate that he undertake its defense.22 He recalled how he had proposed, in
1956, the creation of the Writers and Publishers Committee of the Congress
and had served as its secretary until 1965. Already, in 1955, he had created a
list of the most important social science and literary works published in the
West between 1939 and 1955, and had reached decisions on how that list was
to be forwarded to individuals and institutions like libraries and universities.
Extremely sensitive to avoiding any problem with the authorities, he deliber-
ately sent only those books and periodicals that could be ordered openly and
without any restrictions. The carefully constructed program functioned effec-
tively without stirring up a hornet’s nest of opposition.
Jelenski concluded that it would be “a pity to dissolve” FEIE. What dis-
tinguished it was a priceless relationship with intellectuals in the East, what
he called “a capital of trust.” Several days later, on December 9, 1974, Jelenski
wrote, “by preserving the Foundation, we preserve the future, beyond the
Association [IACF].” He had come to the very heart of keeping alive the spirit
of free intellectual inquiry in Eastern Europe, which had at one time been at
the center of IACF but which it could no longer maintain. And it also stood
at the core of the Ford Foundation’s purpose. Jelenski’s conclusion was self-
evident; it was “to preserve FEIE, even if the Association [IACF] were to
disappear.”23
Ford Foundation executives were impaled on the horns of a dilemma. The

IACF was, after all, its creation, once the Congress had been compromised.
Beylin reported in his historical survey that Sutton told him that “he [Sutton]
should have brought about an earlier liquidation of the IACF.”24 What
brought matters to a head was an allegation that “the waste of money” char-
acterized IACF operations.25 A report by Heaps from Paris on August 22,
1974, registered his shock that 75 percent of the IACF budget was desig-
nated for administrative purposes.26 So heavy were its expenses that, accord-
ing to Beylin, the “new leadership” in the Ford Foundation—McGeorge
Bundy—“wanted to withdraw at that time from its activities in Europe.”27
But this aim provoked intense opposition.
A factor that inhibited plans to eliminate IACF related to the question of
what would replace it. While FEIE was given the “highest ratings” by foun-
dation executives since the seventies, the same supporters accepted the criti-
cism that its leadership was absorbed by “Francocentricity.”28 This term was
meant to convey a pro-Paris bias that included inviting intellectuals from
Eastern Europe to visit primarily or even exclusively Paris and also in award-
ing grants to only those Eastern European intellectuals who spoke French.
What removed the stain of presumed French cultural dominance in FEIE
and thereby guaranteed its independent status was the hiring of a German,
Annette Aschoff—whose name was later changed to Annette Laborey—to
head the Paris office of FEIE. What, however, brought about a final end
to the earlier uncertainty and an arrangement for IACF to cease functioning
altogether and be replaced by FEIE was a report by a new expert from foun-
dation headquarters in New York, David Smock. His report on September
15, 1975, sealed the fate of IACF. Smock strongly chastised an operation in
which only 29 percent of the budget dealing with Eastern Europe was spent
on travel grants, books, and conferences, while 71 percent went to adminis-
trative costs. Especially devastating was Smock’s finding that “the amount
of staff time required to process each grant far [exceeded] the actual cost of
the award.”29
In 1977, the IACF, like its predecessor, would cease to exist. Not only had
it stopped functioning as a magnetic force attracting the younger generation
anywhere, but the Ford Foundation had also decided that it could no longer
act as an indispensable source of IACF funding. The immediate challenging
concern could not but focus upon the isolation and loneliness of the cultural
intelligentsia in Eastern Europe. How could their hopes be sustained, their
spirit nourished, their aspirations encouraged? FEIE, with the financial and
political assistance of the Ford Foundation, assumed in 1978 an independent
existence. For a three-year period beginning in January 1978, it received,
from the Ford Foundation, $225,000. During the subsequent two-year
period, a second grant of $325,000 was provided. A final grant of
$1,022,000 covered the seven years between January 1984 and 1991. FEIE
went out of business in September 1991, after receiving from the foundation
a closing gift to enable it to meet its remaining commitments.30
Clearly, the Ford Foundation made FEIE possible through palpable finan-
cial assistance. But the foundation’s assistance went far beyond the financial
aspect; throughout the seventies, FEIE’s parent body, IACF—or rather, many
of IACF’s leaders—sought to put an end to its recently autonomous sta-
tus. According to its historian, Marek Beylin, FEIE “would never have
existed” had it not been for the “laborious” support of people from the Ford
Foundation, especially Francis Sutton, vice-president of the foundation. His
“support,” along with the support of unnamed others in the foundation,
wrote Beylin, “was decisive for the existence” of FEIE both in the seventies,
when “a strong lobby within the International Association for Cultural Freedom
(IACF)” was aiming to liquidate it, and later, when certain crucial financial
decisions were required of the Ford Foundation to replace it with finan-
cial assistance.31
What is essential to grasp is that FEIE, very much unlike the Congress or
the IACF, deliberately avoided public attention. While it concentrated its
efforts on dealing with the Soviet-dominated Eastern European countries, the
nature of its work would have been considered provocative and possibly
treacherous were its work publicly known. Contacts with Eastern European
intellectuals, out of necessity, had to be shrouded from public attention,
howsoever innocent and apolitical were the books they received or the pri-
vate meetings they had with Western European intellectuals.
Discretion had to characterize these contacts. Avoidance of what Beylin
called “activities of a purely prestigious nature” was critical. Judgment of
what books, periodicals, and materials were to be forwarded to and through
contacts had to be determined totally by informal circles. It was these circles
that were cognizant of what would work. Relatively little was written down,
for reasons of secrecy. And, for the same reasons, the central leadership of the
operation was kept to a minimal number. The history of FEIE, wrote Beylin,
“is primarily a history of the actions of a small group of people immersed in
two contrasting worlds situated on both sides of the iron curtain” (USSR
intellectuals were not involved in this closed and secretive process.)
If FEIE and its activities were unknown generally in the West, that was
hardly an accident. Indeed, in Paris, where its headquarters was located, a
total of two or three people at the most guided the organization, but they
relied, inevitably through personal contacts, upon the efforts of unnamed
persons in several Eastern European countries. Two persons stand out in this
closed Paris circle—Annette Laborey, who became the very personification of
FEIE, and Konstantin Jelenski, who had been an architect of the Eastern
European project of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. A third prominent
figure was Pierre Emmanuel, who would be replaced as general secretary of
the FEIE by Laborey in 1985. She would hold the title until the group’s dis-
solution in 1991.
FEIE was remarkably effective in its primary role of helping nearly three
thousand Eastern European intellectuals receive grants for study trips to mainly
Paris in Western Europe. Quite a few went on similar study visits to Great
Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany. Most recipients of these oppor-
tunities were Polish and Hungarian intellectuals who, in breathing this air of
democratic society, could invigorate a certain modest spirit of intellectual
independence and autonomy upon returning home. They helped lay the
seeds for a free society once the totalitarian barriers to democracy were over-
thrown in Eastern Europe in 1989. A basic criterion was invoked in the
grants to Eastern European intellectuals. Only those who planned to return
to their native land were given grants for study trips. Eschewed were any
grants to those who sought to emigrate or to obtain political asylum. Given
the political conditions prevailing in Eastern Europe during the seventies and
eighties, were FEIE to have encouraged emigration, it would have pro-
foundly jeopardized its entire program for cultural sustenance of the intellec-
tuals in Eastern Europe.
Besides grants for study trips, FEIE continued and greatly enlarged the
shipment of intellectually stimulating books and periodicals to Eastern
Europe. With respect to books alone, some fifteen thousand were sent over
the years. The culturally humanistic ideas found in these books were designed
not only for Eastern Europe, but for Spain and Portugal at Europe’s south-
western tip. The latter countries, through much of the seventies, remained
under the rule of Fascist dictators—Francisco Franco in Spain and Antonio
Salazar in Portugal. For the intellectual community, communism was not the
only enemy; totalitarianism or authoritarianism, in any garb, was the enemy
of cultural freedom and the autonomy of the person.32 That these Fascist
states were a matter of serious concern to FEIE was more than helpful to its
image. Its target was repression in general and, thus, its activism against
repression in the cultural-political spheres proved to be extremely valuable to
its reputation among closed circles of intellectuals, even if the organization
was relatively unknown to the public in Paris and elsewhere in Europe. In
1981, it was awarded an unusual distinction: the Bruno Kreisky Prize, named
after the prominent Austrian socialist premier. The award was extended to
FEIE “to honor its great efforts in defense of human rights.” It may have
been the first time that a grantee of the Ford Foundation was awarded such
a high honor for its work on behalf of human rights.
The prize, accompanied by a valuable monetary contribution, was wel-
comed for a related reason. The Ford Foundation, as was quite well-known
to its institutional grantees, expected and, indeed, encouraged its grantees to
seek out additional funds from other philanthropic sources. But Europe was
not the United States, and the former’s philanthropies in the private arena
were, in no way, similar to American philanthropies. Grants from private
European philanthropies proved to be unusually limited for FEIE, even
when the Ford Foundation offered to pay one dollar for each dollar collected
by it in Europe.33 “The result,” noted the historian of FEIE, “was poor
except [for] individual donations from France and several German and Swiss
grants.” Thus, the Bruno Kreisky Prize helped FEIE “obtain a substantial
contribution from the Ford Foundation.” Another invaluable funding source
that helped it survive was the prominent Erasmus Prize, awarded for great
literary achievement. The significant monetary award for this prize given to
Leszek Kolakowski, Raymond Aron, and Gabriel Marcel enabled each of them
to contribute one-half of the monetary total that they had received to FEIE.
Thus, the “friends” of FEIE helped it to survive.34
FEIE’s ability to survive in the face of the real and prosaic daily burdens
it was plagued with was a testimonial to its leadership skills, its integrity, and
the support of the Ford Foundation. In those areas in which FEIE was
active—Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania—the intellectual
and dissident elite was “strongly influenced by the leftist tradition and its
symbolism,” and therefore, at the time, was hostile to any association with
American ideology. The disclosure of the CIA’s connections to the Congress
for Cultural Freedom exerted an enormously profound negative impact.
Sutton was aware of the problem and had sought to cope with it. As early as
September 21, 1967, shortly after the scandal broke, he noted in an internal
report the direction toward which the Eastern European project would
move with the Ford Foundation’s support: “I find the argument persuasive
that in places like Eastern Europe . . . there are functions we ought to sup-
port but cannot comfortably do so already.”35 He also included the Iberian
Peninsula—Spain and Portugal—in this category. What was being projected
as early as the fall of 1967 was the areas in which FEIE would move. Not only
was the local Eastern European intelligentsia deeply repelled by the scandal,
but so also were institutions in Paris that were a product of an earlier (and
continuing) emigration—such as the Paris based, Polish Kultura.
To meet these concerns, the principal heads of the newly established FEIE
at its formal beginning in 1978, Konstantin Jelenski and Pierre Emmanuel,
undertook several initiatives. They eliminated from all official FEIE docu-
ments all references to the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Then, they
sought to leave the impression, indirectly, that FEIE had been created sepa-
rately from the Congress by a group of intellectuals, and had acted independ-
ently of it. In this context, Jelenski wrote a pamphlet in 1978 presenting a
history, or rather, his version of the history, of FEIE that suggested that it
was truly independent, even during its autonomous relationship with IACF.
Even its formal relationship with the Congress for Cultural Freedom was
diminished.
While Jelenski and Emmanuel were attempting to sharply distinguish the
relationship of FEIE from the Congress, another development in Eastern
Europe at the time, especially in Poland, reinforced their strategy of sepa-
ration. In the late sixties and early seventies, some of the communist intelli-
gentsia, mainly in Poland, as a result of the easing of internal political controls,
were cautiously developing a critical approach about political rights. FEIE
saw itself as establishing some kind of friendly relationship with such circles
of communist intellectuals.
Once it began functioning independently from 1978 onward, FEIE, espe-
cially under Jelenski’s leadership, began orienting itself to the younger intel-
lectuals and scholars of Eastern Europe. At the time, through the Helsinki
Final Act, formal contacts were being arranged between intellectual and
cultural institutions. But the foundation eschewed such arrangements lest it

diminish and compromise the purposes of FEIE of striving for independence
and personal integrity. Some of the younger intellectuals in the West saw the
détente process inherent in the Helsinki Final Act as contrary to the long-
term aspirations of intellectuals for freedom, a view that coincided with the
opinion of the younger intellectuals in the East. In essence, both perceived
the Act as one potentially freezing communist domination of Eastern
Europe. At the same time, they were aware of Helsinki’s human rights prin-
ciple offering opportunities for undermining totalitarian rule.
The problem was that the younger generations of intellectuals in the East
were “not only unknown in the West but unnoticed outside their own cir-
cles.”36 To reach them and establish some kind of reciprocal relationship
constituted a new and special challenge to FEIE. It was Annette Laborey who
pursued this challenge that involved the tactic of “delegating authority” and
“decentralization.” In other words, local circles of the younger intelligentsia
would have to be cultivated at various levels. What was created in Eastern
European countries were local circles grouped around FEIE whose task it
was to search for and refer the names of candidates to the Paris office for
grants. At the same time, Laborey had to follow through at reducing, at least
to some extent, the Paris emphasis of the travel program, and to establish
links to the Federal Republic of Germany and to Britain. That task was facil-
f
itated by the overthrow of the Fascist dictatorships in Spain and Portugal. With
FEIE no longer operating since 1975 in that part of Europe, it became eas-
ier to legitimize travel connections to Britain and West Germany.
In 1978, FEIE, even as it broke new ground, made it evident that the
firm operating rules of the past were still guiding it. First and foremost, it
remained an institution totally independent of governments, political parties,
and formal international institutions, like the Helsinki process. Secondly,
because the political situation in Eastern Europe had changed little since the
Helsinki Final Act document came into existence, FEIE had to continue
to operate with considerable discretion. It had to avoid getting involved in
political actions or protests. Discretion, of course, complicated any effort to
make contacts. Contacts became a hit-or-miss project and depended heavily
on personal trust. That was the direction in which FEIE moved, even when
it meant a diminution in the image that Western institutions held of its sig-
nificance, even when they heard of it. Finally, FEIE adhered firmly to its very
public nonsupport of political emigration. Every declaration to which it gave
expression emphasized that it had nothing to do with emigration at all. Such
a posture permitted it to operate in the communist-dominated Eastern Europe
that viewed with horror the thought that one would want to leave paradise.
Yet, Jelenski and Laborey, according to the historian Beylin, would, at times,
cautiously permit a slight modification of the policy—but, obviously, only in
the most discrete manner possible.37
While the Ford Foundation “favored, supported and helped” FEIE, it
continued to face the problem that went to the heart of its characteristic of
grant-giving. It expected and encouraged grantees to raise separate and addi-

tional sources of funds. But European philanthropic culture was in no way
similar to that of America, and, besides, the very character of discretion that
distinguished FEIE could not easily impress potential European donors. The
Ford Foundation’s insistence on self-financing, frequently with the option of
matching the dollars granted by New York headquarters for locally-raised
funds, would inevitably create serious problems. Discipline was sometimes
invoked by New York, leading to a reduction in allocation that only served to
reduce FEIE’s programmatic effectiveness. Not until the eighties did the
Ford Foundation come to the conclusion that the work of FEIE was too
valuable to be held accountable for inadequate or inept local financing. At
that point and with such recognition, the relationship between funding the
operation and expecting it to obtain matching sources was severed.
That FEIE greatly impressed those Ford Foundation professionals who
were specialists on communism and Eastern Europe can be found in a report
written by Felice Gaer to Francis Sutton on September 4, 1977. Gaer held an
advanced degree from Columbia University’s Russian Institute (later the
Harriman Institute), and she was closely following human rights develop-
ments in Eastern Europe. Of FEIE’s programming, she wrote, “[it is] valu-
able and makes a positive contribution.” She then continued in most adulatory
terms as follows: “It is unique in its reach to a whole range of intellectuals in
all of the East European countries and we are unaware of any alternative
European organization like it.”38 Several years later, in January 1981, Gaer,
at a conference on dissent in Eastern Europe, praised FEIE for enabling, over
the years, “independent artists and scholars from the East European coun-
tries to visit the West for a month or two and meet their professional
counterparts.”39 It was a rare public disclosure of the work of FEIE.
Still, Gaer, in her note to Sutton, found that the range of FEIE activities
was too limited. She noted that many intellectuals in Eastern Europe were
seeking “to pressure” for general reforms and to “develop certain aspects of
national culture and/or history.” In her view, such aspirations ought to be
encouraged and the Ford Foundation could play “a more useful role on such
matters.” This would permit an expansion of the “professional parameters”
within which Eastern Europe intellectuals could function. Whether the Gaer
proposal was acted upon within the foundation is not known. It is not likely,
however, that it would have won FEIE support.
Cultural differences over human rights made for other problems. FEIE,
similar to most Eastern European intellectuals, did not perceive women’s
issues to be a special problem. Under totalitarianism, both men and women
suffered, and hardly anyone paid attention to the severity of the women’s
problems, a topic that, in the West, was a primary concern. For the Ford
Foundation, which had made women’s rights a priority, it was essential,
for example, to have “the right proportion of invitations [for grants] for
women” as for men.40 Beylin commented that the Ford Foundation’s mem-
orandum on this subject “sounded absurd to Eastern European intellectuals,”
including those who had emigrated. And it was these intellectuals who had
exercised a “great influence on the list of grantees.” The Ford Foundation
memorandum from New York could not but generate a certain panic in
FEIE circles. On the one hand, an effort was attempted to search for poten-
tial women grantees. At the same time, Laborey sought to explain to New
York headquarters the lower proportion of women receiving grants. To that
explanation, Beylin added that “she could not, of course, say that anybody in
the East, including women, gave a damn about the problem.”
Inevitably, the Ford Foundation had come to understand FEIE problems
related to women’s rights and it continued to finance FEIE’s operations until
its very end, allocating over one million dollars for that purpose. And key
officials in New York did not appear to have had second thoughts about the
usefulness and effectiveness of the Paris operation.41 The final test came in
1989 with the revolutions in Eastern Europe. Persons heretofore unknown
to the public quickly came into prominence and new circles were formed.
FEIE was soon recognized as “the best informed” about potential leaders,
and it became known as the only institution that could convey information
about the “new people” because, according to Beylin, in the majority of
cases, “these people had been its grantees.”42 Insiders, such as those in the
Polish Solidarity institutions, were fully aware of the work of FEIE. In that
narrow world of critical institutions, FEIE enjoyed great prestige, even if it
“remained unknown to the outside world.”43 In contrast, within Eastern
European intellectual societies, it would have been a failing to any of its
members not to have known of FEIE’s existence.
Certainly, the seventies marked the beginning of a major change in the
attitudes of Western European intellectuals toward communism. To a signif-
icant degree, this resulted from the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s
extraordinary book, The Gulag Archipelago. Intellectual opposition to com-
munism now had quickly emerged from obscurity to challenge the preemi-
nence of communist and procommunist elements among the Western
European intelligentsia. In a totally dissimilar way, during the same decade
and extending into the eighties, intellectuals in Eastern European countries
were affected by books and periodicals produced in the West that challenged
the very essence of Marxist ideology as it was practiced in the USSR and its
satellite states in Eastern Europe. This education of the intelligentsia in
Eastern Europe was made possible by FEIE. The groups could hardly exert
the dramatic and huge achievement of Solzhenitsyn, but its more discrete
and modest strategy helped link the two streams in Eastern Europe that cul-
minated in the revolutions of 1989.
Nothing characterized more poignantly and pointedly the work of
Annette Laborey, who ran, virtually single-handedly, the Paris office of FEIE,
than a chapter in Beylin’s work entitled “Office and Home.” At the same
time, it captured not only the desperate personal plight of the Eastern
European intellectual adrift in the great French capital of Paris, but also,
more importantly, the extremely valuable personal and social function of
FEIE. For, while this totally unheralded and unpublicized organization per-
formed the invaluable intellectual function of supplying Eastern European
intelligentsia with books, publications, travel grants, and personal links to
Western European intellectuals, it also sustained personal contacts once these
intellectuals were in Paris, in connection with some kind of travel grant.
What stands out in these personal relationships is the enormous energy, as
well as the personal attentiveness, of Annette Laborey. As meticulously
described by Beylin, on any particular morning, Laborey would have, as
guests in her apartment, a German, a Hungarian, and a Romanian, all FEIE
grantees. In a nearby apartment of Czech friends who had formerly been
FEIE grantees, there were others staying as guests—two Czechs and one
Pole. Laborey had introduced all of them to each other. At nine o’clock in
the morning, she left for the FEIE office, and several hours later, at noon, a
group of Polish acquaintances arrived at the office. She immediately became
involved in conversations with them lasting through lunch at a restaurant
until four o’clock in the afternoon, when she returned to the office while the
rest of her company went to her apartment. In the evening, she returned
home to find, in addition to a somewhat frenzied husband, ten Eastern
European grantees, as well as her own three children and an additional four
from the neighborhood. Later, the adults left for a bistro, where the conver-
sation would be continued until they all returned to her home at two o’clock
in the morning.44
Beylin relied upon the oral comments of numerous witnesses to capture
this extraordinary and intimate picture of Laborey’s day, and he found these
episodes to be by no means rare. Instead, he observed, “that’s how it was
during the entire period” of FEIE’s existence.45 Laborey’s behavior “per-
fectly alleviated the frustrations of Eastern European intellectuals” whose
view of the rich West and its intellectuals clashed, in fact, with reality. But her
handling of their social problems also accomplished “one more purpose . . .
people from Eastern Europe countries could meet each other.”
Eastern European intellectuals, in the main, did not have friends in the
West, and Western intellectuals did not seek to cultivate new relationships. If
the Western intellectual lacked time to create “superficial” personal relation-
ships with the Eastern European, this meant, to the latter, a “lack of inter-
est.” Thus, the Eastern European, in the event of a grant and trip to Western
Europe, was “gripped by loneliness,” made all the more “painful” as they had
been “steeped in dreams” about the West.46 Laborey made their dreams come
true. “She was nurse, mother, and a guy in the dive who would listen to their
life story.” She took them shopping, arranged appointments with doctors, and
at the same time, on quite a different level, “patched up their cracked identi-
ties,” enabling them to get a sense of what the West was really like, “some-
thing they needed to do so much.”47
Beylin was also especially revealing in observing how the intellectuals of
different Eastern European countries had a “complete lack of interest in their
Eastern European neighbors despite the fact that they actually shared . . .
[the same] lot.” Only FEIE, of all the Western institutions, sought to cope
with this problem of the isolation of Eastern European intellectuals from one
another. Laborey accomplished the extraordinary, trailblazing task of creat-
ing “a network of international East-East contacts” (emphasis added). The
newly made friendships, Beylin observed, were eventually to “turn into joint
political actions.” Regrettably, he failed to offer examples of their later
joint ventures.
In its work in Eastern Europe, FEIE, out of necessity, had to make impor-
tant distinctions between the different states based upon their respective
internal political situations. Far easier was its ability to function in Poland and
Hungary rather than in Czechoslovakia, Romania, or East Germany, and,
therefore, its selective process in awarding grants to people in these countries
proved to be more accurate and productive. As Annette Laborey had family
links to Hungary, her task in that country was simpler. She had merely to dis-
cipline herself in limiting grants to old friends and to maintain a “professional
honesty” by inviting “new people” into the grant-receiving circle. Beylin
found her to be largely guided by integrity. The selection process in Poland
was more complex. There, the selection process was based upon two separate
systems. First, there existed an older and prevailing central list that was super-
vised by FEIE’s authority on Poland, Jelenski. This list consisted of the
names of several dozen people who had been frequent recipients of FEIE’s
previous grants. On a separate level, Laborey’s contacts brought in other lists
composed of the names of intellectuals less well known who had traveled to
Western Europe less frequently and who came from a variety of backgrounds
in both urban and provincial areas.
Complicating the general grant and travel problem was the sudden impo-
sition of martial law in Poland in December 1981. That action was taken by
Marshal Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish ruler, in reaction to the continuing
militant activism of Solidarity within the country. Travel grants became more
problematical. At the same time, the new military rules created difficulties for
people returning home from trips abroad. Numerous grantees on short term
stays in Paris found themselves stranded and without adequate funds. This
crisis generated a very long line of grantees at FEIE’s office in Paris.
Unperturbed, the Ford Foundation responded quickly with a special fund of
fifty thousand dollars.48 The Ford Foundation’s experience with the earlier
refugee crisis in Chile enabled it to effectively cope with the problem. The
Polish martial law crisis produced a parallel concern. If, heretofore, the Ford
Foundation had pressured FEIE to engage in its expected fund-raising, as it
had pressured other institutions with which it had a clear working relation-
ship, how could it do so now?
Romania offered a dramatically different picture. The brutality of the
communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, made unpredictable the personal future
condition of any grantee or dissident. A breakthrough was possible only
in circumstances of a payoff to members of the state party apparatus. FEIE
could award grants to selective persons only when grants were also awarded
to certain Communist Party bureaucrats. Still, the “ground rules” in Romania
could always change, which made for uncertainty, and the risks remained
great. Yet, there were those who were prepared to run the risks. An exam-
ple was Andreas and Catrinel Plesu, whose apartment in Bucharest served as
FEIE’s center. Significantly, after the revolution overthrowing Ceausescu in
December 1989, Andreas Plesu became the new Minister of Culture.
Annette Laborey evidently extended a personal touch in trips to Romania,
though with great risk and meticulous caution. Beylin appropriately offered
the comment that the difficult and desperate procedure cultivated in Romania
by FEIE “contributed to preserving in that system persons who after the
overthrow of the [Ceausescu] regime came to constitute the cultural and
political elite.”49
Special circumstances prevailed in Czechoslovakia that virtually excluded
FEIE activities. The “Prague Spring” of 1968 ushered in direct Soviet mili-
tary power and the disintegration of the majority of autonomous artistic and
intellectual circles. Later, in 1977, after the Helsinki Final Act had taken on
a life of its own and generated a new activist movement—the Charter 77 move-
ment was launched—there was no special need for FEIE. Charter 77 could
provide a direct and effective substitute. Besides, Czechs were not permitted
to travel abroad, and thus grants would not prove helpful. Only after the
Velvet Revolution of 1989 could FEIE assume a distinct significance for
Charter 77 and the new, transformed situation.50
East Germany was particularly difficult for FEIE activities, even for Laborey,
who was herself German and visited there from time to time. The East German
regime was persistently suspicious of dissidents whose politics might go awry
through contacts with Western groups. Consequently, FEIE avoided inviting
grant recipients directly; instead, invitations came from such labels as the
French Pen Club or Laborey’s art gallery, Galerie Lambert. According to
Beylin, approximately one dozen or so dissidents in East Germany were indi-
rectly assisted by FEIE funding.51
A different kind of problem was applicable in assisting Yugoslavs with
grants from FEIE. One question was, should the foundation provide grants
to those intellectuals with official government connections even if those con-
nections were not at all on the same wavelength of Soviet bureaucracy? Or
should it cultivate the totally independent individuals? And what kind of cri-
teria was appropriate for determining who was genuinely independent? In
1984, Yugoslavia, a communist state, although not a Warsaw Pact member,
invited FEIE to organize a conference. For the moment, it seemed that FEIE
would be officially recognized in at least part of Eastern Europe. However,
nothing came of the conference proposal. And the persons involved in the
project were subsequently repressed. Needless to say, this experience under-
mined any impression at the FEIE office about a possible independent
Yugoslav integrity.52 FEIE’s involvement with Bulgaria was nonexistent after
the sixties, although initially it had played a modest role. In 1989, however,
with a political alteration in the country’s leadership taking place similar to
the broad political changes in the region, FEIE was able “to get fully
involved in helping the opposition which was organizing itself.”53 This
provided contacts with the elite of other Eastern European countries, pro-
ducing an undefined “real effect.”
In summing up FEIE’s unique and significant achievements in the Eastern
European area, Beylin offered the general conclusion that the “people who
passed through its doors” were in fact, the representatives of the Eastern
European intellectual elite that now—after the 1989 Revolution in Eastern
Europe—“to a large extent,” comprised the “political and cultural establish-
ments” of these countries. This assertion would have proved all the more
impressive and remarkable if Beylin had provided and documented this state-
ment with the appropriate names and related information; rather, substantive
documentation was missing here.
The impact of FEIE varied from country to country depending upon the
repressive severity of the differing regimes. But, to the extent that FEIE
functioned on a decentralized basis, its policy guided by local and personal
decisions, the outcome was tactically a success. Successful, too, was the pol-
icy of cultivating East-East contacts that, during the revolutionary and post-
revolutionary period initiated in 1989, as noted by Beylin, “became very
important.”54 Especially valuable had been the shipping of books and peri-
odicals to the intellectuals and dissidents in Eastern Europe. This provided
them with indispensable information that was generally not available for their
use. For those hungry for political and cultural sustenance, FEIE proved to
be a source of immeasurable spiritual value and, therewith, encouragement
for a hopeful future. As important, if not more so, were the opportunities for
travel to the West, especially Paris, provided by FEIE. The live cultural and
spiritual nourishment for sensitive, lonely, and deprived intelligentsia was
irreplaceable. Solid evidence could be offered not only about the current
scene but also about a possible future that would ultimately be seized upon
and given viability.
Less useful, thought Beylin, were the various conferences held in the West
to which grantees from the East were invited. Only one that was devoted to
the Polish Solidarity movement and held in Paris during 1982 proved “con-
structive.”55 It had involved the participation of outstanding Western intel-
lectuals presenting valuable academic papers. The other conferences, Beylin
noted, “were not very constructive,” but he failed to offer any explanation of
why they were unproductive, or of what features presented by the Paris
conference in 1982 were not or could not be replicated. The only thing he
did note, and this certainly posed a serious problem, was that the authori-
ties throughout Eastern Europe were especially sensitive to such conferences,
probably because they would attract broad public attention, and, therefore,
“watched more closely for those kinds of invitations” to grantees and intel-
lectuals from Eastern Europe. FEIE, aware of the problem, “gave up organ-
izing conferences,”56 with an exception made for the Paris conference about
Solidarity in 1982.
With the success of the 1989 revolutions that brought an end to commu-
nism in Eastern Europe—except in the Soviet Union, where it would last
another two years—FEIE, as well as the Foundation’s leadership, recognized

that FEIE’s usefulness had come to an end. It had helped sensitize the intel-
lectual communities in much of Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland and
Hungary. Its purpose in a noncommunist world, where freedom gave the
artist, writer, and thinker the opportunity to shape his or her own world as
well as the society from which he or she had sprung, was no longer in doubt.
The task that it had set for itself had been fulfilled partly as a result of its
own efforts.
Discussions as to whether FEIE should continue into the new era of the
nineties lasted for some time. But to have done so would have marred and
dissipated the extraordinary legend it had created. The time had come, its
leaders recognized, to lower the curtain. In September 1991, a special cli-
mactic conference was scheduled and held in, appropriately enough, Cracow,
Poland. It lasted three days, culminating in a festive ball. And, of course, its
principal organizer was Annette Laborey herself. She arranged its final joyous
moments just as she had arranged the difficult months and years of uncer-
tainty in the face of a ruthless totalitarian force.
Participating in the Cracow Conference were one hundred intellectual
activists who had been grantees of FEIE, and, therefore, indirect grantees of
the Ford Foundation, and had been associated with it in its remarkable, if dif-
ficult, efforts in Eastern Europe. A final word was offered by the distin-
guished Polish philosopher and writer, Leszek Kolakowski, whose dissidence
had reverberated throughout the area. Kolakowski proposed a special tribute
to the person who symbolized the aspiration and work of FEIE. He recom-
mended that the numerous monuments of communism should not be
destroyed. Rather they should be left as they were, with, however, their heads
removed and replaced with Annette Laborey’s likeness. The proposal was
accepted.57
Chapter 7
Ta k i n g R i s k s o n S o u t h A f r i c a
W hen Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa in 1994 and
the shackles of the previous apartheid regime were removed, an end was
brought to the third major repressive structure of the post–World War II era.
The hideous system that had deprived by law and practice a vast majority of
the population of blacks, Indians, and people categorized as the mixed race
of “colored” had seemed for a long time virtually impregnable. Few had
expected this institutionally frozen system of apartheid, which had totally
eliminated basic human rights for the bulk of society, to crumble and disinte-
grate. Indeed, if thought was given to the removal of the apartheid regime,
which was increasingly rigid and repressive, the prevailing assumption was
that only the extensive violence of civil war could succeed in destroying the
system. But when the chains of discrimination and subordination were lifted
at the beginning of the nineties, without civil war or violent revolution, it
seemed as if a transcendent miracle had been wrought.
Miracles, however, hardly explain radically transforming moments in his-
tory. A combination of factors reinforcing powerful internal forces played
major roles. The continuing and courageous nationalist movement of South
African blacks was the decisive factor, but significant legal and educational
efforts, conducted out of necessity by indigenous nongovernmental organi-
zations and supported by some external NGO actions, assumed remarkably
critical roles. Especially impressive were the initiatives undertaken by the
Ford Foundation in a variety of areas, none more important than its support
of the NGO, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, and partic-
ularly, its so-called Southern Project. The foundation’s extraordinary and
unusual work, although it is hardly known and rarely provided public expo-
sure, warrants special attention.
External factors, especially the roles played by major Western powers, in
challenging and weakening the economic strength of South Africa, were also
of critical importance. In this connection, the policy and decisions of the U.S.
government were of decisive pertinence in compelling the rigid apartheid
power to acquiesce to fundamental modification of its character. That the
United States would reluctantly and only over time perform this function was
by no means accidental. Of the various agents shaping or seeking to shape
U.S. policy, none was more important than the Ford Foundation and the
NGOs it supported. This, too, will be examined in some detail.
Strikingly, the foundation’s concern about the brutal apartheid structure
of South Africa began well before the international community and its insti-
tutions became seized by it. Not until the early sixties did the United Nations
view apartheid as a vital and critical human rights problem. It was during
that decade that a large number of new African states, freed from colonial
and imperial rule, entered the UN and would later change the character and
priorities of the international organization.
The government of South Africa until then was treated as just another
regime, without being subject to any specific sanctions. South Africa’s inher-
ent subordination of its majority colored population was nowhere singled out
for disparagement, and, indeed, apartheid was not referred to in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. It would not go unnoticed that the Pretoria
regime chose not to criticize any aspect of the Universal Declaration nor
even to vote against it during and prior to the debate on its adoption on
December 10, 1948. South Africa simply abstained in the final vote. Its reac-
tion to the declaration on the final vote expressed indifference to the entire
issue of apartheid as an intrinsic, international, moral concern.
As early as 1952, the foundation initiated the funding of what began as a
modest research institution promoting the improvement of relationships
between the races. Called the South Africa Institute of Race Relations, it was
awarded fifty thousand dollars by the foundation for its “educational and
research activities.”1 The next year, the institute received a three-year $120,000
grant for the study of the “problems of the Union of South Africa’s multira-
cial society.” Foundation support enabled it to publish a number of useful
research papers related to the economic and social conditions of blacks and
other colored groups.2 Beyond expanding its valuable research, the insti-
tute was enabled by the grant to acquire its own building and to develop
three strong and active community-supported branches in Cape Town,
Durban, and Port Elizabeth. Its reputation for the competent accumulation
and use of facts became firmly rooted and would remain so until the end
of the century.3
What prompted the policy decision of 1952, only two years after the foun-
dation transformed itself into a major humanitarian organization aimed at
promoting democracy and opposing totalitarianism, is not clear. Human rights
was yet to be placed on its agenda. A graduate research study prepared at
New York University in 1987 by Paul J. Kaiser determined that the founda-
tion’s orientation to South Africa sprung from the Gaither committee’s con-
clusion in November 1949 that “society must accord all men equal rights
and equal opportunity” to develop their capacities, and must, in addition,
“encourage individuality and inventive and creative talent.”4 Somewhat exu-
berantly, Kaiser had decided that the Gaither report nearly three decades
earlier meant that the foundation would fund “organizations in South Africa
that are dedicated to social and political equality for people of all races in
South Africa.”
Taking Risks on South Africa 141
Certainly, the 1952 decision regarding the South Africa Institute of Race
Relations constituted a significant turning point in the foundation’s early pol-
icy and was clearly reflected in its program budget. Kaiser found that grants to
various South African organizations constituted “a substantial amount” of
the total foundation budget.5 The sizable initiative was not without con-
sequence and impact. A foundation staffer, Melvin Fox, who was sent in
December 1959 to investigate the early accomplishments of this organiza-
tion, had concluded that the transformed and greatly enlarged Institute of
Race Relations was already “playing a most important and indeed a unique
role in South African affairs.”6 Fox had been with the foundation since late
1951. A specialist on international economics, he was primarily concerned
with African issues. He would later be based in Lagos, Nigeria, where he served
as head of the regional foundation bureau.
After emphasizing the significance of the institute, Fox went on to elabo-
rate on his findings. In his report to the foundation, he wrote that the insti-
tute had become a significant source of data for both liberals and conservatives
about social legislation and about economic and social conditions.
t Significantly,
he also found that the institute had begun to raise funds at a far higher level
than it had done alone in the past, thereby demonstrating that it had become
“accepted by leading businesses and other members [of the South African]
community as an organization worth not only supporting, but becoming
identified with.”7 The staffer concluded that the foundation had put the
institute “on entirely new footing” not only in terms of what it accomplished,
but also in how it was perceived by others, “including the government.”
Readers of his report at foundation headquarters in New York could not but
derive considerable gratification that the foundation’s support over a seven-
year period “[had] done much to bring the Institute to this position of strength
and acceptance.”
In addition to the research institute, churches were also a primary recipi-
ent of foundation grants in its early years. The initial focus was upon a key
institution of the Dutch Reformed Churches, the principal religious struc-
ture of the Afrikaners, the descendants of the Boers who had attained demo-
graphic dominance in the white community in South Africa during the period
that ended the Boer War. Linked together by the Federal Missionary Council,
these church groups, as early as 1954, formed the so-called Continuation
Committee of South Africa that sought to establish communication and coop-
eration ties with Anglican and other Protestant churches, including black
churches. It was hardly unexpected that the foundation would seek to assist
the Continuation Committee and, as early as 1954, it provided the commit-
tee with a grant of ten thousand dollars.
By the time Fox arrived, the committee had held an unprecedented inter-
denominational and interracial ecumenical conference in Johannesburg at
the beginning of December. Significantly, the Dutch Reformed Churches
were a driving force in promoting the conference, while the foundation
helped to finance it. The black issue was touched upon only tangentially, bor-
rowing from a study theme adopted by the World Council of Churches: “our
common Christian responsibility toward areas of rapid social change.” Still,

the essential features of apartheid would be subjected to quite clear, even if
indirect, criticism. A unanimously approved final resolution made reference
to “this multi-racial conference” and urged “reconsideration of the policy of
migratory labor,” a policy that was at the heart of the apartheid system, by
compelling black laborers to migrate to their jobs in urban areas without
their families. It would have not gone unnoticed that the resolution called for
“the reestablishment of normal family life, adequately housed and provided
for by wage-earners enjoying sound human relationships at their work.”8 It
also called for recognizing the importance and sanctity of the human person-
ality “regardless of racial and cultural difference.” The positive feature of the
resolution, even if not sharply and distinctively put, prompted Fox to com-
ment that the foundation’s investment in the Continuation Committee “could
be extremely significant and far-reaching.”
A third area for early foundation support was an important university, one
with a research institute engaged in the examination of social science issues.
In 1954, $27,500 was awarded to the Natal University Institute of Social
Research. Of particular interest was support for a financial conference pro-
jected in 1956: “Problems Arising from the Structure and Functioning of a
Multi-Racial Society.”9 The foundation grant permitted the Natal University
Institute to invite and involve in its programming highly talented and expe-
rienced American university professors from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and
the University of California at Los Angeles. One of them was distinguished
Professor Gordon Allport of Harvard. Clashes of the Natal Institute with
the university’s economic department hampered the institute’s plans and
work, but Fox anticipated that it had “a potentially important role to play”
once the academic hostility within the university diminished. Fox’s hope would
prove correct: the institute’s significant involvement in social issues would grow
and deepen for the balance of the century.
The valuable academic exchange initiative in the social sciences was a mod-
est indication of the foundation’s imaginative U.S.-South Africa Leadership
Exchange program. While the initiative for the program came from a vari-
ety of public and business sources, the foundation provided “the largest
single contribution.” Fifty thousand dollars was granted to the effort during
1958–61. Of some significance was the exchange program’s decision to
arrange for the United States to send John Wheeler on a special tour of
South African communities. Wheeler was a prominent black businessman
and banker from Durham, North Carolina. The arrangement could be
expected to produce a positive impact. Wheeler’s trip, under the exchange
program, required a positive decision by the government’s cabinet and the
personal approval of the stern apartheid advocate, Prime Minister Hendrik
Verwoerd. Fox was told that the visit was of greater concern to Verwoerd
than the U.S. verbal attack on South Africa in the United Nations.10
Approval was delayed until the very last moment. Threats of resignation by
two top South African officials, both conservative, should the invitation be
rejected may very well have prompted the final approval. The world did not,
as a result, come to a crashing collapse, and indeed, the visit was found to be
“soundly executed from a critically important tactical standpoint.”11
Even if Fox’s report was generally upbeat, he could not fail to be aware of
the severe limitations in South Africa in realizing the foundation purpose
of promoting “equal rights and equal opportunity.” An obvious realist, Fox
observed, “the Foundation cannot expect to operate in South Africa either as
freely or with as broad a range of activities as it can in other independent
countries in Africa.”12 He especially cautioned against activities “related
directly to the development of non-Europeans” (for example, blacks, Asians,
and colored people). Programs geared to this aim, he held, could not be sup-
ported “without stirring government suspicions and antagonism.” Yet, given
these overwhelming restraints, the regime still claimed to operate under the
rule of law and through a parliamentary system. This offered “room for
modification [of rigid apartheid practices] and maneuvers [within the sys-
tem].” Fox was sufficiently realistic to recognize, “the amount of room and
time is unquestionably diminishing.” The reference to a “diminishing” time
frame suggested an almost prophetic sense. Within another decade, the
parameters for maneuvers would be greatly constricted.
However, there remained space for maneuvers, Fox recognized, was in
certain educational projects specifically related to universities, or involving
churches or known and established research institutions. Grants and projects
geared to a cautious and modest objective, he believed, “could significantly
strengthen the institutional and leadership force working for modifications.”
In his view, productive links between U.S. and South African scholars should
be maintained and reinforced.13 He also pressed for the aim of facilitating
contact and communication between the non-European groups and the white
population. This would be tough enough to realize, but even tougher was
the aim of improving the training and research opportunities for “non-
Europeans.”
Fox spelled out his proposals in some detail.14 His top priority would be
the continuation for five years of the Leadership Exchange program, which
he expected would total fifty thousand dollars. Of particular concern to him
was the shortage of American experts on the subject of South Africa. But of
equal importance was the strengthening of academic scholarships in South
Africa on aspects of social science matters related to race. The foundation
staffer also urged grants for academic conferences that would involve “non-
Europeans.” Thus, a grant of ten thousand dollars was proposed for a Natal
University education conference scheduled for July 1960. Recommended,
too, were grants for the study of African societies other than the Union
of South Africa. He asked for one hundred thousand dollars covering five
years for African studies programs at the Universities of Cape Town and
Stellenbosch, both major and influential schools.
Again, with the object of approaching, but only indirectly, the various
urgent health and educational problems of blacks, Fox proposed a $112,000
grant (over four years) to the Child Development Program at South Africa’s
National Institute for Personnel Research. Another sizable grant was proposed
for the National Nutrition Research Institute and the Pediatrics Department
of the Pretoria University Medical School. The total Fox sought was five
hundred thousand dollars. Even if only tangentially related to the improve-
ment of the condition of “non-Europeans,” these efforts still were a signifi-
cant step forward in view of the constraints confronting those in South Africa
seeking to advance human rights. With all the difficulties facing the founda-
tion in dealing with South Africa, Fox believed that progress could be made,
and he urged a quite modest course of action that could produce positive
results, howsoever limited.
In contrast to the upbeat approach of Fox in 1960, a second investigator
from the foundation, a decade later, was far less optimistic and recommended
that the foundation shift its focus to a more direct and political approach.
The investigator was David Smock, who had joined the foundation in 1964
as a specialist on Nigeria. Earlier, he had studied at the University of London,
majoring in African tribes. In his view, the situation a decade earlier, when
Fox had gone to South Africa, was radically different. At that time, Smock
said, blacks had believed that “genuine multi-racial cooperation” “was a real-
istic goal for South Africa.15 This was no longer the case. The new founda-
tion staffer, after a penetrating review of the changed social and political
situation, came up with a strong pessimistic outlook.
In Smock’s analysis, blacks were “on the bottom of the economic ladder,”
but more importantly, “their economic opportunities [were so] severely lim-
ited” by the monopoly on jobs maintained by whites, “along with discrimi-
nating wage scales” resulting from “inferior education” and from a host of
regulatory and political burdens, that all progress toward equality had come
to a veritable halt; indeed, he contended, a reversal had set in.16 Among the
regulatory obstacles, one was highlighted: black “movements [were] care-
fully controlled by pass laws,” limiting their stay in any particular urban place
and disrupting their relationships with family. Besides, “they [were] not allowed
any political activity and [had] no political representation.” Smock’s descrip-
tion came to a searingly bitter conclusion: “they [blacks] [lived] in a state of
semi-terror as a result of suppressive legislation and police-state tactics.”
As the most recent foundation visitor to South Africa, Smock found virtu-
ally nothing to relieve his foreboding of both gloom and doom. He wrote,
“far from seeing hopeful signs, I came away enveloped by despair.” Though
he considered it “important” for foreign governments and private organiza-
tions to “do what they [could] to encourage change,” the possibility of
change, he believed was “slim indeed.”17 A host of the following develop-
ments were pointed to in explaining his “despair”: a law was passed outlaw-
ing parties that had members of more than one race; white politicians who
were supposed to represent the interests of the “colored” were eliminated
from Parliament; and control of African labor was tightened by new legisla-
tion aimed at uprooting Africans from urban areas. This was accomplished
by imposing severe restrictions upon the length of time that black laborers
could stay in predominantly white townships, and by preventing blacks from

bringing their families to stay with them.
Instead, a batch of new regulations was enacted that were especially bur-
densome. In addition, black Africans were no longer permitted to live in
their former homes in areas now restricted to whites, nor were they permit-
ted long-term leaves to visit their former residences, even in the formerly
black sections of now European white-inhabited towns or cities in South
Africa. To complete the severe racial separation under apartheid, rules were
enacted declaring that interracial marriages consummated outside of South
Africa would no longer be recognized. Finally, in 1968, the apartheid gov-
ernment, in various rural areas, forcibly removed Africans from land on which
they had lived for generations and moved them to new areas.
The very nature of the unfolding condition for blacks generated not only
a totally negative outlook about the future by Smock, but also, more harshly, a
“conviction that any Foundation projects relating to South Africa [would]
probably only strike at the fringes of the problem rather than attacking it
fundamentally.” Smock’s conclusion was almost enough to drive his superi-
ors in New York to withdraw from an extremely difficult and delicate situa-
tion. But Smock refused to throw in the towel and chose not to recommend
abdication of responsibility. Despite the overwhelming obstacles, he wrote,
“there are some things the Foundation can and should do.”
Worth continuing and encouraging were support of the Institute of Race
Relations and the U.S.-South Africa Leadership Exchange program. The for-
mer was seen as valuable to maintain in order to have some channel of com-
munication between the races; the latter was thought to be useful in providing
exposure to an alternative to an oppressive apartheid system to South African
leaders. But of far greater significance were Smock’s suggestions, made in a
very preliminary and hesitant way, for the foundation to consider the use of
law and legal aid as forms of leverage in this society that presumably prided
itself on the rule of law but restricted its application exclusively to the domi-
nant white community. The focus upon law and the use of established legal
methods would later become the fundamental theme for South Africa and
other restrictive societies. It would serve as a basic weapon of the foundation.
At one point, Smock came up with the suggestion that the foundation
should consider the advisability of assisting in the holding of a conference on
the rule of law in South Africa and on legal aid. What gave emphasis to the
notion was the growing number of arrests, by the police and military author-
ities, of blacks who violated pass laws on residence in white urban areas or
who demonstrated on behalf of grievances. Entering into the legal area, even
if indirectly, was a far cry from working on purely educational programs and
conferences related to them. Even more venturesome was a quite radical sug-
gestion that the foundation should consider “discussing” whether it “should
get into the business of assisting with the legal defense of South Africans
detained on political charges.” While frankly expressing uncertainty and
doubts about the idea, Smock chose not to dismiss it, and welcomed further
consideration. Indeed, this became a lever that would ultimately help unhinge
the whole system.
What prompted Smock’s speculation about legal defense assistance were
developments occurring in South Africa during late 1967 and early 1968,
when the first major case, in which thirty-seven blacks from South West
W Africa
were charged with terrorism, was heard under the newly adopted, brutally
repressive, and harsh Terrorism Act. (South West Africa, now called Namibia,
had been seized and colonized by Germany in the late nineteenth century. It
came under the administration of the Union of South Africa after World
War II.) The Terrorism Act, while enacted in 1967, was made retroactive to
1962. Smock was frank enough to admit that he did not know how many
people were being held under its provisions without having had a trial sched-
uled for them yet. The law provided that the police were allowed to hold
suspects for an indefinite period of time without charges.18 Of the thirty-
seven South West Africans, nineteen were sentenced to life imprisonment,
and most of the others to lesser terms.
What was emerging in the late sixties as a key player with respect to legal-
defense matters in such unusual and unprecedented circumstances was the
newly established Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law. The com-
mittee, based in Washington, DC, was initially created in 1963 at the urging
of President John F. Kennedy. Its purpose was domestic rather than interna-
tional, and South Africa was not seen as a focal point for the committee’s
immediate or later attention. It was President Kennedy’s hope, in view of
emerging and deepening activism by police and prosecutors in the American
South, that the legal system in the United States would ensure that civil
rights workers received adequate legal representation. The president’s sug-
gestion met with some success. Legal assistance was initially rendered to civil
rights workers in Mississippi, and later in fourteen major urban cities in the
United States. The Lawyers Committee was able to obtain the legal services
of important law firms as well as of individuals who provided thousands of
hours of pro bono legal work.19
That the foundation could prove helpful in the mid-sixties in assisting the
blacks in South Africa, even with the obvious risks that would be entailed, was
suggested by the character and perspective of the foundation’s new president
at the time, McGeorge Bundy, who was appointed in the fall of 1966. A
determined Republican liberal who had switched to the Democratic Party
when John F. Kennedy had run for U.S. president in 1960, he became
Kennedy’s National Security Adviser. As a committed liberal, Bundy could be
expected to be hostile to a society built upon the disenfranchisement of
blacks, the colored, and other racial groups. But that he would support foun-
dation staff initiatives designed to aid the disadvantaged in a positive, if risky,
manner was hardly a certainty. After all, a major consideration in the founda-
tion’s work in any country had been to avoid alienation of its government.
But, for Bundy, race prejudice was an evil of huge dimensions that had to be
vigorously opposed. “Affirmative action” was essential, he thought, in fighting
it. Later, he would not hesitate to extend “affirmative action” to South Africa
as well.20
On the level of higher education, Bundy, who had been a provost at Harvard
College, was a powerful advocate for affirmative action in the United States,
and was a supporter of various proposals to help blacks attend universi-
ties and acquire higher degrees. He was equally committed to a similar objec-
tive in South Africa. It was hardly accidental that the foundation, under his
leadership, would offer scholarships to blacks, would facilitate their admis-
sion to universities in the United States, and would extend financial assistance
to black colleges in South Africa. Significantly, the foundation’s stepped-up
program for South Africa in the seventies coincided with the stock market slide
in the United States. But Bundy did not retreat from his commitment to
helping blacks in South Africa.21
That Bundy’s priorities would have stirred some opposition among busi-
ness leaders on the Ford Foundation’s Board of Trustees would not be sur-
prising, although no documentation on the subject is available. Still, there
is some indication of dissatisfaction with his administration. In 1976, Henry
Ford II resigned as a board member, an unprecedented development for
him. While no specific reasons for the resignation were offered, an implied
criticism of the Bundy administration was made in a letter released by Ford.
He caustically observed that the foundation was “a creature of capitalism,”
but this reality was difficult to find “in anything the Foundation [did].”22 It
is apparent that Bundy interpreted the remark as referring to the founda-
tion’s role in international affairs, not domestic affairs. He sarcastically com-
mented that the foundation was “making the world safe for capitalism.” The
contemptuousness of Bundy’s response, while not signaling what precisely
agitated Ford, was nonetheless revealing as to where Bundy stood: “I don’t
think one letter from anyone is going to change the Foundation’s course.”
And he was insistent that the foundation must confront racism whether at
home or abroad. In fact, there is no specific indication that the Bundy policy
on South Africa was opposed within the Ford Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
Not surprisingly, black leadership in the United States turned out in full
force at an affair in Bundy’s honor hosted by the Urban League president,
Vernon Jordan.
In 1967, the Washington-based Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under
Law added a modest international dimension involving the legal defense of
individuals who were charged under the multiplying number of security laws
in South Africa enacted to sustain apartheid. While the foundation had pro-
vided the committee with over three million dollars from its National Affairs
Division for legal assistance on domestic matters, a radically new program
would now be projected. South Africa would become the focal point. But, at
the same time, the foundation was advised that the Lawyers Committee’s
program in South Africa would have to be curtailed because of funding
shortages related to its planned work in that country unless “emergency
assistance [was] obtained.”23
The Middle East and Africa Division of the foundation asked for a modest
contribution to enable the committee to keep going. The Lawyers Committee’s
credentials were quite good, with some five years of experience in working
with South African lawyers in legal defense work. On its own, the committee,
in 1967, assisted the leftist lawyer, Joel Carlson, in his defense of thirty-seven
Namibians prosecuted under the Terrorism Act, which had attracted world-
wide attention. The following year—1968—it aided Carlson’s defense in a sig-
nificant police torture case. In 1969, the adventurous committee sent a
noted U.S. pathologist to South Africa to testify at the inquest of a black who
had died under police detention while being given electrical shock treatment.
During the first two years of the seventies, the committee was helpful in
connection with widely-publicized alleged terrorism cases such as “The Trial
of the Twenty-Two” (1970) and the “Trial of the Thirteen” (1971). A major
issue in the second case was the interrogation techniques and practices of
South African security officials. The committee provided extensive memo-
randa on relevant U.S. case law, and, more importantly, arranged for a lead-
ing American psychiatrist to visit and advise the defense on questions of
the admissibility of evidence.24 Other responsibilities were also undertaken
by the committee. Given the serious racial difficulties in South Africa, the
committee extended moral support to members of the South African Bar
who undertook to represent clients in unpopular cases. In addition, the top
professional officer of the committee made it his business to meet with
prominent lawyers and judges in South Africa to express U.S. concerns about
the application of the rule of law in South Africa.
Even while pursuing these legal tasks, committee officials and activists
inevitably impacted U.S. legal professionals, who were made aware of the
South African racial trauma and how the rule of law was often undermined
and distorted. Committee assistance, over time, became especially helpful
when U.S. public interest in South African issues led to boycott or disinvest-
ment activities frequently taking place on college campuses. Committee lead-
ers could and did provide advice on how to deal with the apartheid system
from a legal perspective. As the rule of law became a central focus of the
American community, the Lawyers Committee could not avoid becoming a
key factor in public discussions. The powerful American Bar Association was
among those nongovernmental institutions that now displayed “an increasing
concern” with the South African problem, and, ineluctably, it too “depended
largely” upon “relevant information” extended by the Lawyers Committee.
Once the committee requested formal support for its work that, by the
early seventies, embraced a number of areas—most notably in assisting in
the legal defense of the growing number of political prisoners arrested by the
authorities in Pretoria—it could hardly be refused by the foundation. The Ford
Foundation staff member who was asked to investigate the question had sug-
gested, even if tentatively, a particular and direct form of financial assistance.
In 1972, the foundation formally granted the committee $50,275 for one
year. Authorization was provided in a brief memo sent by David Bell to
McGeorge Bundy.25
It was the beginning of a new era in the foundation’s involvement in the

South African problem. It marked a radical shift in its strategy, although the full
scope and impact of that shift did not become apparent until the mid-eighties.
Until the late sixties or early seventies, the foundation worked mainly on the
margins and in tangential areas. This was not to suggest that these areas were
not important, for they were, especially insofar as education was concerned.
But with direct aid to an NGO whose activities went to the very heart of the
apartheid legal structure, a totally different perspective had been introduced.
And that new perspective would constitute a fundamental challenge to the
legitimacy of the apartheid regime.
Three years after Smock’s detailed and pessimistic report to Wayne Fredericks,
his boss, Fredericks sought to present the apartheid issue within a broader
framework that generated a more upbeat, though hardly optimistic, mood.26
Operating from a key foundation post in the New York headquarters as pro-
gram adviser to David Bell, the vice-president in charge of the International
Division, Fredericks was deeply aware of the impact the apartheid regime was
beginning to exert upon the world scene and, especially, upon the domestic
scene in the United States. Before his foundation appointment in July 1967,
he had served in the State Department as deputy assistant secretary of state
for Africa. That apartheid had become, in his view, “one of the major prob-
lems facing the world community” was now self-evident. For leaders of vir-
tually all African governments, it had developed into “a primary political
concern” and, therefore, could be seen as “a threat to world peace.” Equally
significant, apartheid in its new, more rigid, and inhumane form was recog-
nized by Fredericks as “an issue in the U.S. domestic arena,” particularly among
students, churchgoers, and black Americans.
Yet, even if resented and held in utter disdain by the world community, as
expressly indicated in UN debates and resolutions, apartheid was hardly con-
sidered to pose any immediate threat to world security or peace. Realism dic-
tated, as Fredericks recognized, that the economic, military, and police power
of the regime was “so overwhelming that no serious challenge to it in the
near future [could] be foreseen”; rather, the threat of war was seen as a long-
term result of apartheid. Surprisingly, Fredericks made no reference to the
extensive UN preoccupation with apartheid.
South Africa’s “overwhelming” power, at the same time, made it difficult
to perceive or anticipate a civil war or a collapse of the apartheid regime from
within. Nonetheless, a serious examination of a variety of pertinent issues fac-
ing the apartheid regime strongly suggested that it was far from invulnerable.
Ultimately, and in less than two decades, the foundation would come to play
a strikingly significant role in bringing down the apartheid regime. Wayne
Fredericks was remarkably perceptive in highlighting some of these challeng-
ing features.
First to be noted was “a growing anxiety over the state of the economy.”27
If political power depended upon internal economic strength, then close analy-
sis of South Africa’s economy could not but signal trouble looming large.
Reality dictated that industrial progress could not be possible without an
extension of the internal market. But the very nature of the apartheid regime,
with its restriction upon black African labor, severely hampered the hoped-
for expansion. Only the most radical structural changes in the economy could
enable the viciously exploited black African labor force to make the domestic
market economically viable. While the domestic market was ineluctably lim-
ited, the foreign market offered major problems and difficulties, as well. The
nearest markets in Africa, to a large extent guided by the principle of racial
solidarity with the oppressed blacks in South Africa, had imposed partial
embargoes on the apartheid regime’s exports. As for the markets of the West,
the future did not appear promising. As hostile opinions mounted in the
West to the growing repression in South Africa, the potentiality of embar-
goes was certain to grow.
Matching the emerging economic problem threatening South Africa’s sta-
bility and strength was a deepening fury in the black population. The grow-
ing anger in South Africa found expression on two levels. The first level
involved the provincial Bantustan structures, where an unexpected resistance
suddenly appeared. The so-called Bantustans, which were supposedly inde-
pendent ethnic units, were created by the apartheid regime in an effort to
convince the West of the appropriateness and legitimacy of separate develop-
ment for the several racial groups within South Africa. Pretoria’s rulers also
expected that the allocated autonomy would produce, if not a certain satis-
faction among the subjugated racial groups, at least a willingness to accom-
modate to the ideology of separateness. What happened in Namibia in
December 1971 revealed that separateness was unacceptable and would sim-
ply not be tolerated. The major ethnic group in Namibia—the Ovambos—
spearheaded the first successful black strike in South Africa’s history. (The
Ovambos constituted two-thirds of the region’s total population.)
The basic issue of the strike revolved around the contract system for labor
in the mines of the region. Under the contract system, the political overseers
determined the conditions and payment for work in the mines, and, more
significantly, controlled the workers’ movement as well as their bargaining
power. Intrinsic to the contract system was the binding requirement that
the worker be separated from his family for lengthy periods. In essence, he
became a migratory person divorced from his immediate family. When the
Ovambos struck, the whole contract system was put at stake. The thirteen
thousand miners who were on strike were sent back to their homes by the
South African police and military. The economic impact was huge. Almost
the entire industrial operation in South West Africa came to a halt, as did the
communication and public network services. If the UN Security Council
had formally held South Africa’s presence in the area to be illegal—a view
endorsed by an official judicial opinion rendered by the International Court
of Justice in The Hague—this legal abstraction was now provided a degree of
substantive reality.
The Sharpeville episode of March 21, 1960, marked a seminal point in the
struggle of blacks in South Africa. At that time, thirty miles from Johannesburg
several thousand blacks demonstrated in a march against the pass laws of the
regime. The police opened fire, killing 27 demonstrators and wounding 180.
It evoked international shock even as it stirs African anger now. Not since
Sharpeville had the apartheid regime been so traumatized by world reaction.
The Namibia upheaval sent a similar shock wave throughout South Africa’s
entire ideological and political system. The assumption upon which the
Bantustan system rested, namely the complacency of the nonwhite popula-
tion, was shown to be utterly illusory. Indeed, Bantustan leaders appeared to
be orchestrating demands for more land, more authority, and more privileges
before they would agree to the proposed separate structure. How long the
illusion of separate development would continue had become questionable.
On a second level, the apartheid system was challenged by the rapidly
advancing “Black Consciousness” movement. This would exceed signifi-
cantly the resistance in the Bantustans. The impact of the challenge would
be strongly felt among high school students. But it had also taken hold
within the churches, and within education and welfare groups. The move-
ment served a variety of purposes, such as to raise the morale of the blacks
and to urge them to organize themselves in a meaningful way so as to con-
front the powerful apartheid system. Symptomatic of the “Black Consciousness”
movement and the extent of its embrace of a variety of disparate social
groups was the so-called Conference of African Organizations held on
December 16, 1971, at the very time that the Ovambo crisis had called
public attention to the concerns of black workers. The conference, held in
Soweto, brought together black religious, education, and welfare groups—a
total of over fifty groups. The conference marked a day of fasting and prayer
aimed at asserting black rights. What was especially striking, noted Fredericks,
was “a reemergence of political articulateness” that could not be shouted
down or driven off the political stage.
Most illustrative of the “Black Consciousness” movement was the appear-
ance of new, dynamic leaders whose ability and skill would be tested in the
crucible of public action under severely trying circumstances. Parallel to the eme-
rgence of new leaders was the sudden appearance of new centers of activism
where the young leaders would seek to break the previous calm surface of
public activity and begin to confront the apartheid system. When linked to the
serious economic problems facing the dominant white society, a vital test of
control was raised. The future appeared unpredictable. Where others were
engulfed in pessimism, Fredericks saw “opportunities for change.”28
An article in the journal Foreign Affairs in January 1972 that was written
by the president of the National Union of South African Students, Neville
Curtis, was cited by Fredericks as underscoring both the trauma of the pres-
ent and what strategy had to be pursued for at least a limited breakthrough.
The Curtis conclusion read,
Change in South Africa is going to be a painful process, actively resisted by the

White elite. It is going to require the emergence of Black leadership and a
power base from which to operate; the development of organizations and

organizing ability, and at least limited freedom in which to exercise them.29
In response, Fredericks outlined his programs that the foundation was under-
taking to confront the growing challenges. He made it clear that while the
foundation had engaged in activities relating to southern Africa “for many
years,” it had more recently “expanded its interest.”30 Among the expanded
programs, a crucial one dealt with refugees who had fled to escape the like-
lihood or actual threat of arrest because of their political activism. Refugee
assistance by the foundation, as it related to Chile and Argentina, had pro-
vided its staff with valuable experience. Now, these earlier initiatives would be
updated and reapplied to South Africa. Precisely what that assistance involved
was not formally disclosed, but he did emphasize that the foundation would
focus upon three independent states that bordered on South Africa A or consti-
tuted conclaves within it—Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland. It was known
that refugees had settled in these countries, especially in Botswana.
The objective was even broader in scope: to develop the economy in these
separate areas and, thereby, demonstrate how blacks could develop a flour-
ishing economy. Thus, the foundation, operating out of its regional office in
Nairobi, Kenya, would assemble and make available advisers on development
economics as well as specialized consultants for these areas. A number of travel
and study awards by the foundation would be made. Fredericks noted, too,
that the new emphasis on legal assistance, especially through grants to the
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, would run parallel to the
refugee assistance program. He also noted that a grant would be made to
the University of Natal Law School to prepare for a conference on legal aid.
What was deemed especially essential by the foundation was the urgent
need to enlighten the international community about developments in South
Africa so that positive foreign policy initiatives could be undertaken. Detailed,
objective, and specialized knowledge about South Africa was thought to be
lacking, and the foundation saw itself, along with other foundations, as a trail-
blazer concerned with the apartheid problem. Their aim was to stimulate
discussions as well as general information among “opinion makers,” always a
key group that the Ford Foundation sought to influence. Major research
projects were anticipated at leading universities in the West, especially in the
United States. One project that was particularly important was a series of
books on Southern Africa to be published by the University of California
Press. A grant of $67,500 by the foundation was projected for this purpose,
which would be initiated in 1972.31 The study, to be discussed later, would
exert an extraordinary and unique influence on public thinking in the
United States about apartheid, particularly in the American business com-
munity. Other universities were also given grants to produce or publish
works on South Africa, ranging from Howard University in Washington,
DC, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, to the University of Sussex in
England. Academic conferences on apartheid at various universities, including
the University of Natal in South Africa, were also to be funded by the foun-
dation. In addition, grants were to be provided for research papers and books
on apartheid produced by individual scholars.
But even with elaborate educational grants aimed at affecting public think-
ing in the West about apartheid, the foundation recognized that changes
would have to overcome the giant barriers of the powerful apartheid system.
Fredericks summed up the thinking at New York headquarters by observing,
“the ideas and changes necessary for solutions in Southern Africa must come
from within as well as without.”32 Essential to South Africa’s future was “the
building of competence,” both with respect to individuals and organizations.
Here, the foundation could play a vital role, as the nonwhite population had
been “severely restricted” in achieving these objectives. Still, he noted, the
foundation “had had extensive experience in the United States and other parts
of the world, including Africa,” in producing “leadership competence.”
While the “building of competence” remained a goal of the Foundation,
its fulfillment could come, in a major way in the future, over the question of
how the apartheid system could be erased. Without providing details, Fredericks
wrote that “the Foundation is in unique position to help” realize the objec-
tive of “change and . . . the elimination of gross inequities.” In this com-
ment, he promised “an intellectual and supportive lifeline to the outside
world.” While no specific proposals were offered, it was apparent that, just as
the foundation in the mid- and late-seventies had focused upon NGOs, so
now, too, the similarity involved the likelihood of human rights NGOs serv-
ing as the “lifeline.” One of them was the Lawyers Committee for Civil
Rights under Law. This group was to play a major role both within South
Africa and in the United States in shaping America’s thinking and policy on
South Africa.
That the leadership of the foundation, including the Board of Trustees,
was involved in serious internal discussions about the “risks” of continued
and more vigorous programs challenging apartheid is suggested in a section
of the Fredericks report that carries the heading, “The Ford Foundation and
Southern Africa.”33 The risks of “an active program” were defined as “con-
siderable.” One of them merits special attention: that foundation grantees in
Southern Africa “may come under attack, possibly because of our support as
a foreign institution or that individuals may be arrested or detained under
one of the numerous laws which could be invoked.” Projected, too, was
the “risk” that some African countries would view any “development” pro-
gram in South Africa as supportive of apartheid. Fear was also expressed that
“public attacks may be leveled at the Foundation” by various segments of
U.S. society.
Apparently, the issue of “disengagement” from Southern Africa was advanced
and rejected. To disengage would have meant, read the report, losing “an
opportunity to assist in the process of change.” Moreover, it would have
increased the “isolation” of those in Southern Africa “under severe handicaps
to effect change.” Finally, there was the historic matter of the foundation’s
“social conscience.” It could not easily sustain “a total retreat from this
[apartheid] issue.” Clearly, the resolution to move ahead in various ways
already delineated was not quickly reached. The report speaks of an “inten-
sive staff debate on the variety of program options” that had taken place, and
notes that “certain dissenting opinions” were expressed. In the end, the
objections to the planned program were deemed “unacceptable,” provided
that the “program efforts continue to be handled with care and prudence.”
The cautionary warning was of critical importance. Yet, when the positive
program was accepted, even with the expected risks, doubts were turned
aside. The caveat was oriented only to the procedure of how the program was
to be handled, not to the correctness of the policy. Determination, rather
than doubt, characterized the foundation’s programmatic decisions on
Southern Africa, as represented in the attachment to the Fredericks report.
This upbeat determination was also reflected in an additional appendix to the
report providing excerpts from the budgets of the foundation’s Middle East
and Africa Division during 1969–71.34 The driving purpose of the founda-
tion can be seen in the following: “The Foundation’s activities in recent years
have been intended a) to assist the development of multi-racial societies . . .
in Southern Africa; [and] b) to help a few of the organizations in Southern
Africa which work for better race relations.”35
Significantly, the excerpts from the budget of the foundation’s International
Division during 1969–71 that were appended to the Fredericks report often
referred to “the potential impact of Southern African race issues on black
Americans.” One particular excerpt was especially intriguing: it noted that
the tensions created by the official apartheid policy within Africa were gener-
ating similar tensions within the United States and were “likely to exert an
important and possibly decisive influence on future relations between the
United States and Africa.”36 This assertion signified a global type of strategic
thinking to which Bundy was accustomed and that he no doubt stimulated
among foundation staffers. The implication here is clear: progress in South
Africa on race relations would be welcomed by blacks in the United States.
As the foundation anticipated, the twin contradictory and cyclical features
of apartheid would continue to unfold in a mortally dangerous manner. With
the resistance of the oppressed population deepening, repression would inten-
sify, leading to ever-greater resistance, including acts of violence. Increasingly,
anxious foundation staff visitors would investigate developments in South
Africa and document, as well as illuminate, the features of the contradictory
process. A particularly impressive analysis of the process was made in late
December 1976, four years after the somewhat upbeat Wayne Fredericks
report, by Sheila Avrin McLean.
McLean had joined the foundation in 1970 after serving in a major law
firm in New York. At the foundation, she held the important position of asso-
ciate general counsel. McLean’s report was far more downbeat and depress-
ing than the observations of Fredericks. That reaction was hardly accidental,
for it came several months after angry and escalating riots broke out in the
black Johannesburg ghetto of Soweto on June 16, 1976. The government
reaction, as expected, was a harsh and brutal crackdown. What made the
Soweto affair especially distinctive was the involvement of youngsters who
were only between the ages of twelve and fourteen years old.37 Never before
had the youth, in such large numbers, entered into the fray against apartheid.
The initial target of the youth revolt was the required use of the Afrikaans
language as the teaching medium in black schools. But the protest soon
turned into a demand for ending the separate educational system for blacks.
McLean was startled by the evidence: She wrote at the very beginning of
her report, “The most striking and depressing impression I took away from
our recent visit to Southern Africa is that much of the guerrilla warfare
against whites in South Africa is being conducted by children—Black African
children.”38 Before arriving in South Africa, she had stopped in Lesotho, where
she met with “young teenagers” who had fled from South Africa. In Botswana,
too, she was provided with verbal documentation from South African refugees.
And upon her arrival in Cape Town, she met with defense attorneys “who
confirmed this impression of children in revolt.” They also confirmed that
the twelve- to fourteen-year-old youngsters were “charged, prosecuted and
found guilty at once without prior consultations with parents or attorneys.”
McLean learned that over nine hundred black school children had already
received punishments ranging from fines to jail sentences and caning.
Equally startling was the fact that a quarter-million black children in Soweto
were refusing to attend school at all. Precisely who was leading the protest
was not at all clear to her. She was not even certain “whether they [were]
being led or if their parents [supported] or [disapproved] of their action.”
If leadership was unknown, motivation, nevertheless, was clear to McLean.
The rationale came not from some ideology, but rather, she was convinced,
was “an instinctual expression of hatred and anger against the state’s repres-
sive system.” A quotation from a Soweto mother captured the logic of the
children’s resistance and the fierceness of their determination: “Our children
are telling us that they have nothing to lose . . . we are slaves of the white
man. If we have nothing more then we can give our lives.” While knowledge-
able sources indicated that it would take ten years before a trained, armed
group could wage a successful revolution, at the same time, it had now become
evident to whites, “for the first time,” that an “armed struggle” had become a
possibility.
The authorities, it was clear, embarked upon the course of an uncompro-
mising deterrent response of “more preventive detentions,” with the possi-
bility of torture. June 16 was now seen as a watershed. Disturbingly, it had
also revealed to McLean’s sources that the “liberal” English-speaking com-
munity of South Africa, when confronted by the black resistance, was basically
aligned with the Afrikaner regime. The future was found to be discouraging.
South Africa’s so-called “Homeland” policy restricted black citizenship rights
to their supposed “Homeland” area. Economically, this meant that South
Africa itself was restricted largely to whites insofar as landholding was con-
cerned. Eighty-seven percent of the land that generated 99 percent of the gross
national product was held exclusively by whites. Blacks living and working
in white urban areas were strictly limited in numbers and were treated as for-
eign labor. Legislation adopted in the summer of 1976 strongly reinforced
this separation and intensified resistance to it. The new Internal Security Law
provided for the indefinite detention of political opponents. As of November
1, 1976, there were already over 390 being held under the law, forty-two of
whom were school children and sixty-one of whom were university students.
Strikingly, almost a quarter of the detainees were quite young.
McLean’s overall perspective of South Africa made it unlikely that any
change in the political power structure was conceivable. Enjoying “massive
power,” the apartheid regime was not expected to succumb. Rebelliousness
on the part of black youngsters would lead to sizable detentions, other forms
of repression, or significant increases of refugees fleeing to nearby independ-
ent black states like Lesotho and Botswana. In short, she envisioned a “com-
plete black-white polarization.”39 What bothered her most was that “the
generation of children who [were] prepared to fight and strike . . . could eas-
ily build up the most bitter resentment toward every white.” Interspersed
within this vision was another equally harsh repression of young blacks. To
McLean, these contradictions signified a “fundamentally sick” society.
McLean’s despair did not mean that efforts ought not to be made to assist
the South Africans. The contrary was the case, especially as the black youth
was involved. Her primary focus was upon the Lawyers Committee for Civil
Rights under Law, particularly its Southern Africa Project. Her meetings
with defense lawyers, both white and black, about their handling of cases
involving African youth, impressed her greatly. Particularly striking to her
was the working together of black and white lawyers in these cases. In
her view, such collaboration was “a particularly important and visible symbol
of white support to the young Black Africans.” She feared that young blacks
would become totally alienated from whites, and thereby spark a race war.
In her report to foundation headquarters, she wrote that “renewal” of the
Lawyers Committee’s request for a grant was expected, and she recommended
that it “be strongly supported.”
A second organization was also lauded: the South African Council of
Churches. McLean observed that it was “the only organization . . . assisting
the families of political detainees.” The nature and extent of the assistance
were not provided. Instead, she noted that the council had undertaken the
task of finding lawyers who could defend youths arrested during and follow-
ing the June riots in Soweto. The lawyers upon whom the churches drew
were from prominent white “establishment” law firms. For McLean, this
marked an obvious plus. The value of such high-level defense work could not
be underestimated. The lawyers found that those not represented by counsel
were “swiftly convicted and sentenced.” In McLean’s opinion, as indicated in
her memorandum, “the Foundation should try to stay in touch with the
Council as it offered a “white-black bridging by defense counsel.” The coun-
cil’s local and indigenous presence made it particularly valuable, as the Lawyers
Committee was based in Washington, DC, quite a distance away.
With law playing such a crucial role in the foundation’s overall involve-
ment in South African matters, it was quite logical that McLean might want
to speculate about a special legal structure that would facilitate the founda-
tion’s purpose. One of her major contacts (who was also a foundation adviser,
unofficially), was John Dugard, Dean of the Law faculty at Witwatersrand
W
University in Johannesburg. He proposed the creation of a structure that
would experiment with and evaluate various forms of legal aid. Such a struc-
ture might provide lawyers to advise or represent poor persons in coping
with the complexities of local legal matters, such as challenging legal pass
restrictions. Another purpose of this structure would be to upgrade the skills
of black lawyers. Such a structure—McLean called it a “law foundation”—
would assume the task of organizing a legal conference on the uses of jurispru-
dence to cope with the plight of blacks. McLean welcomed the concept and
suggested that the Ford Foundation “help identify” U.S. judges and
lawyers as possible participants in the conference.
In concentrating upon legal defense issues, McLean could not escape the
need to focus on public relations as a mechanism to arouse the world’s con-
science. She spent some time in London to meet with officials of Amnesty
International for advice and assistance in drawing attention to political det-
ainees. From her perspective and based upon political realities, “the most
important assistance a political prisoner in South Africa [could] get [was]
international attention.”40 She proposed that a “special grant” to Amnesty
International be considered with the aim of obtaining significant information
on how to exploit the adoption of South African political prisoners.41 Her
rationale was clear: “My feeling is that there will be significantly more arrests
and detentions in the future and that we should be alert to the possibility
of assistance in this area.”
A unique aspect of the McLean report was its unprecedented concentra-
tion on black labor. That subject would come to be seen as a strategic core
element in the struggle against the apartheid system. McLean, a legal staffer
at the foundation, appeared to be among the first to recognize its potential
significance. The fundamental reality of black labor’s condition was at the
heart of this plight—unequal pay as compared with white labor, and its tech-
nical inability to form unions that might challenge that condition, even if
enormously burdensome. From a legal viewpoint, blacks, nonetheless, went
ahead and somehow organized trade unions. Compounding the problem
was a discriminatory legal system of citizenship and migratory labor laws that
separated black laborers from their families for long stretches of time. After
consulting with key economic professors at the University of Cape Town,
McLean advanced the idea for the foundation “to support” a “potentially
very useful grant” that would study and analyze “the web of labor laws and
pass-laws” dealing “with the migratory nature of the labor force.”42
Even while black labor unions were not permitted to engage in collective
bargaining, they were allowed to undertake traditional union activities like
collecting dues from their membership. Indeed, factory-based work committees
were functioning in the western areas of the country around Cape Town.
There was even an umbrella organization for the factory-based workers com-
mittees. However, new repressive initiatives by the government, such as the
“banning” of the leaders of the informal unions, were believed to have “per-
manently endangered” the early efforts of black trade union groups.
McLean did not think that the foundation could assume a direct respon-
sibility for helping African worker groups, but she proposed an alternative
method. She wondered in her memorandum about the usefulness of founda-
tion officials talking to a high American labor union official, Glenn Watts
of the Communication Workers, to urge that his union undertake “to edu-
cate themselves about the problem of South African workers” so that they
might extend support to South African worker groups. Had not, she recalled,
American trade unions posted recently a three-quarter million dollar bond
on behalf of the NAACP? Would it be so far-fetched for American unions to
be “pursuing this line” in South Africa? The differences between American
and South African trade unions, were, of course, so huge as to make the ques-
tion unseemly. Yet the very posing of the issue was not unproductive. Later,
American unions would become vigorous allies in the battle against apartheid.
Labor was not McLean’s only focus of concern. She also believed that cor-
porate America might play a useful role. South Africa’s business community,
even with the urging of Harry Oppenheimer, the mining magnate, was not
likely to offer meaningful concessions. From her perspective, the offers, char-
acteristically, were “very vague, and too little, too late.”43 In contrast, poten-
tial help could come from “transnational corporations . . . especially those
based primarily in the U.S.” Of course, such transnational groups must have
distinct business interests in South Africa. She pointed to several individuals
who might be consulted by foundation leaders in New York, including for-
mer Congressman Andrew Young. He had talked of a possible role that the
Carter Administration might play. Could not Young, as the new administra-
tion’s ambassador to the UN, she apparently believed, be in a position to
exert some meaningful influence on Washington and the American business
community through the White House?
McLean’s perception of future activity by transnational corporations was
not restricted to only the area of commerce and business. Rather, she was very
much focused on the field of South African labor and legal restrictions, which
inhibited a potentially powerful factor in tackling apartheid dominance. She
posed the issue rather neatly: “An important point for us [in the Ford
Foundation] to keep in mind is that there is room in the law for African
unions to maneuver, especially if they are nurtured by the transnational cor-
poration.” McLean did not restrict her suggestions to the immediately
threatening area of defending the youthful rebels challenging the system or
the black union members seeking to break through the bind of discrimina-
tory restraints.
She was also keenly interested in the problem of the education of young
blacks and, therefore, looked to the foundation’s scholarship programs. That
program had found a negative response among the young insofar as the var-
ious “Homeland” universities were perceived “as a product of the State’s
forced separate development,” and besides, these institutions offered “infe-
rior education to Blacks.” For McLean, the key to black educational upgrad-
ing was the black faculty. In her judgment, the route to be pursued by the
foundation was in offering the faculty of the “Homeland” universities
Master’s Degree training “outside of South Africa.” She was emphatic on the
urgent need to provide solid educational training for black youngsters “in
preparation for majority rule.” It was impressive that McLean was looking
down a very long road and anticipating an eventual breakthrough. Not only
did she press the foundation on granting numerous faculty scholarships, but
she also sought to open the program to “a wider group of people,” includ-
ing to those holding Bachelor of Arts degree, on the basis of correspondence
courses from the University of South Africa.
Her essay concluded with a return to her deep preoccupation with the
trauma of black children. She expected that many more “[would] be arrested,
charged, convicted and sentenced” under the older Terrorism and Suppression
of Communism Acts as well as under the new Internal Security Law.
Although she viewed the role of the Lawyers Committee in the legal defense
field as necessary and valuable, she cautioned about other foundation pro-
grams, even after she advocated them. The “tolerance” of the South African
regime toward the foundation grant programs for South African institutes,
churches, and universities remained always an uncertain factor. Expanding
“our [foundation] activities beyond the line of acceptability,” howsoever
vague that “line” was, might result in the government rejecting the founda-
tion grant program in South Africa altogether. It was, in the end, “risky busi-
ness” to continue with the grant program. At the same time, “defense work
and assistance to African political detainees and their families” could not,
under any circumstances, be halted. They constituted, she wrote, “the most
helpful [programs] that we [in the foundation could] offer.”44
Chapter 8
Th e R e j e c t i o n o f “Fata l i s m”
I f developments in South Africa were profoundly traumatic, they hardly

reflected an unfolding reality on the world scene. At the very time when the
foundation’s acutely perceptive investigator, Sheila McLean, was registering
an utterly pessimistic outlook about the future in South Africa, the United
States was moving to inaugurate a president, Jimmy Carter, who was com-
mitted to an activist human rights approach in foreign policy. Concern about
trends in South Africa had become deeply rooted in major areas of American
life. The South African embassy in Washington, DC, had become, since 1974,
the target of even larger daily demonstrations. And human rights had also
become a centerpiece of the international community, symbolized the fol-
lowing year, in December 1977, with the unprecedented awarding of the
Nobel Peace Prize to Amnesty International, the world’s leading human
rights NGO.
Still, McLean’s concerns would have to be dealt with. The foundation
would ineluctably be compelled to wrestle with the question of navigating its
increasingly risky policy through a worsening situation. That it would do so,
and do so effectively, was testimony to its commitment to human rights and
an acute intelligence of how to fulfill that commitment. McLean had been
quite brief about one aspect of the South African trauma: the plight of the
refugees, often youngsters or young persons who had fled to nearby black
states, like Botswana. Certainly, she was acutely aware of their problem; after
all, she was consumed by the terrible tragedy that compelled them to flee.
But, there was little she could propose to relieve their plight. Much more
serious and experienced was a foundation staffer who had just arrived on the
South African scene—David Heaps. He had played a central role concerning
the Chilean situation in 1974–75 that very much involved the exodus of
intellectuals from the brutal Augusto Pinochet regime. He had diligently
examined all the facets of that issue, and his findings obliged a major and
transforming shift in foundation thinking concerning military dictatorships
and how to deal with the inevitable intellectual-refugee problem that would
result. Earlier, he had been preoccupied in Paris with the intellectual refugees
leaving communist society in Eastern Europe.
Now, but a few months after Sheila McLean’s investigation and report,
Heaps would undertake for the foundation a major inquiry on the problem
of young black refugees from another form of dictatorship: the racial dicta-
torship of apartheid. His focus was on how to “assist the refugee situation”
in southern Africa.1 A more knowledgeable specialist could hardly be found.
He sought, early in 1977, to research and investigate what the standard inter-
national refugee organizations were already doing about the plight of the
young refugees and how the foundation might prove helpful.
The inquiry involved not only a canvassing of the entire southern African
area, including Rhodesia, but also major international centers dealing with
the refugees, most notably Geneva, Switzerland, where the UN and other
agencies were headquartered. In his trip to Geneva, Heaps was accompanied
by Robert Edwards, who headed the foundation division dealing with south-
ern Africa. Heaps summed up his impression with the comment, “a real life
tragedy of possibly epic proportions is unfolding inexorably.”2 His sources
advised him that the situation was “deeply unpromising [and] probably fated
to get worse.” Hardly a pessimist, Heaps had earlier studied particularly
dire circumstances. Still, he considered the circumstances of southern Africa
to be “an emergency situation” going well beyond “immediate rehabilitation
measures.”
It was Heaps’s task to ascertain what was being done in the area and “whose
efforts potentially could be supported and strengthened” by the foundation.
Heaps’s focus was largely upon Botswana, which constituted “a real crisis
area” where the refugee problem was “threatening” and might spread to
contiguous areas. He saw the “immediate need” as being “to help shore up
the Botswana capacity to handle the refugee . . . problems.” In his visit to the
offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, he was over-
whelmingly stunned by the agency’s inadequacy. He wrote that he “cannot
recall ever having met in the aggregate a less incisive knowledgeable and pre-
pared group” as the staff of the UN agency.
If, in consequence, he expected little from the UN refugee office, he was far
more impressed by discussions with staffers of the Geneva-based International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The committee was already expecting
that the southern African area would involve “human and political diffi-
culties” for which it was “preparing . . . to be helpful.” For South Africa
itself, the ICRC would want to make sure that “appropriate standards for
political and military prisoners,” as elaborated in international law, were
“maintained” by the authorities. This would involve “assurances for prison visi-
tations” by ICRC officials. Their primary focus was clear enough: they con-
centrated not on refugee issues, but rather on prisoners.
The International University Exchange Fund, an organization about
which Heaps acknowledged to have known little, turned out to have had
already a “significant” program for specifically black South Africans and
refugees from other southern African countries. The program embraced, in
1975–76, 1,637 scholarships that had gone to South African students. Of
this total, 721 went to student refugees from the southern African area.
The Rejection of “Fatalism” 163
More broadly active with respect to refugees was the World Council of
Churches. Its International Commission director and his colleagues were
described as being “terrified” by the refugee situation. Sufficient help was the
problem, as assistance was provided through the regional church bodies of
the World Council. The anticipated “increased efforts” of churches would
thus be “limited” by their “capacity
t . . . in relation to needs.” Also housed in
Geneva was the International Commission of Jurists, which, for a long time,
had received grants from the foundation. Its director, Niall McDermott,
indicated to Heaps that the primary concern of his organization was to help
provide adequate legal defense assistance to prisoners in South Africa.
Several other meetings with Geneva institutions were also held by Heaps,
but these proved unproductive. Only the Heaps meeting with the International
Committee of the Red Cross, he believed, offered some significant assistance
and warranted special attention. He called for the “strengthening of the
ICRC presence” in South Africa. A proposal along this line had already been
received by the foundation in New York, which he appeared to welcome.3
McDermott proposed the establishment of a “public defender.”4 But Heaps
failed to develop it further. He did endorse a suggestion for an “on-the-
ground investigation” to determine “what [could] be done” to relieve “the
acute refugee problem.” In his view, this inquiry might be undertaken by “a
scholar-journalist type” with familiarity of the area. It would be designed as
an “action-oriented” intensive analysis. The results could be, he thought,
“distributed publicly” and “published in a reputable journal or as a book
or brochure.”
No one person was mentioned to perform the task. But, in a conversation
that Heaps had with Martin Ennals, head of Amnesty International, a curi-
ous proposal was made. Ennals insisted that there was an “urgent need . . .
for someone to go there [the southern African area] at an early date to take
a fresh look at the total situation to assess what might best be done.” After
rejecting various types of individuals who might be selected, the Amnesty
International director suddenly expressed the hope that Heaps himself
“might be able to undertake such an assignment.” He ventured this sugges-
tion because, at the time (according to the Heaps memorandum), Heaps’
relationship with the Ford Foundation was characterized as “a very loose
association.” What was Heaps’s reaction? Candor mixed with false modesty
resulted in his “concurrence with this view.”5 During the subsequent pages
of the memorandum, no further reference was made to the odd conversa-
tion. At the very end, Heaps simply recommended that the foundation make
a conscious effort “to keep regularly in touch with the principal agencies
active in the field.”6
The Soweto riots clearly marked a turning point in the struggle against
apartheid. And, not surprisingly, they also marked a turning point in the pol-
icy and program of the Ford Foundation. Few would have been able to grasp
the twin turning points and their interrelationship as much as Robert
Edwards, who headed the Middle East and Africa Division of the foundation,
and had traveled with Heaps on the latter’s mission to southern Africa. A
most perceptive generalist and analyst, Edwards was in a position to deter-

mine developing trends and anticipate future directions. As he was leaving
the foundation in June 1977, one year after the events in Soweto, he chose
to set out in an interoffice memorandum, addressed to David Bell, a fairly
detailed projection of his expectations.7 Edwards’s immediate reaction to the
unfolding current situation was one he described as “fearful and fatalistic
about the black-white conflict in Southern Africa.” A cautionary personal
note was then appended to an obvious pessimistic tone that bordered on cat-
aclysmic doom: “Fatalism is uncharacteristic of an organization which believes
in progress through efforts of reason.” Yet, the need to be upbeat had to be
qualified by the reality that the “conflict [was] rooted in factors which lie beyond
the reach of human will and reason” and that is rooted in the “ineradical
whiteness and blackness” of their respective histories.
In his analytical summary, Edwards had come to the conclusion “that we
are only at the beginning of a struggle.” The very nature of the system of
apartheid designed to provide for a total separation of the races, and at the
same time created an eventual sense of doom hovering above everyone and
everything. The total white community, not merely the Nationalist Party of
the Boers, held to the firm and earnest belief that “the nation’s blacks [were]
a problem to be dealt with . . . not parties to a dispute [or] adversaries to be
negotiated with.” At the heart of this belief was the fundamental “perception
[of the blacks’] inferiority.” If the “centrality” of Western culture provided
for the notion of the assimilability of the blacks, the attitude of the white
regime in South Africa involved its total and utter rejection. “Fears of Arm-
ageddon” dominated the southern African scene.
Catastrophic chaos could be expected, especially in the economy. Separate
development policy ran totally contrary to the very nature of the econ-
omy that was recognized as “large, sophisticated [and] unitary.” To have it
“Balkanized or partitioned geographically” could never be realized “without
major upheaval.” This constituted the major “flaw” in South Africa’s logic
and its reality, as blacks were already “solidly integrated” into the econ-
omy, and fully one-half the black population lived in or near the white urban
areas. But the psychology of fear among whites trumped the logic of reality.
As Edwards viewed reality, the whites had reached the conclusion that
there was “nowhere to go” and, therefore, a fight to the finish was in the air.
Edwards saw the collision of two separate worldviews as being just around
the corner since the focus of “hatred and bitterness” was already welling up
for the final Armageddon.
What might have played a tempering element before a violent end seized
the opposing forces, Edwards believed, was the role of the United States. His
analysis was most unusual and quite original in his characterization of how
the South African situation impacted America. Indeed, he looked upon the
distant geographical scene from a strikingly domestic perspective and, there-
fore, saw it in very special terms. In his view, the race issue within the United
States “still [posed] the greatest threat” to America’s social and political
system.”8 If that threat could be ameliorated by “ensuring that blacks [were]

assimilated more generously . . . through the economic and power hierar-
chies” of U.S. society on the one hand, it could be severely sundered by
“hatred and savagery between blacks and whites” in Southern Africa on the
other. That which posed “the principal strategic threat” to the United States
was not “Soviet opportunism exploiting the ‘hatred and savagery’” for its
own purposes, but rather the “poisoning of the America racial atmosphere.”
Precisely because of clashing black-white interests in southern Africa that
could not but spill over onto the attitudes of whites and blacks within the
United States, Edwards concluded that the United States was obliged to hold
one major policy objective: “Preventing Southern Africa from disrupting our
own multi-racial polity.” Already in the U.S. business community, he found
an “admiration for the probity and efficiency of white South Africans.” In
sharp and distinctive contrast, American blacks were profoundly aware of
“U.S. business acquiescence in apartheid.” The contradictory view could not
lead to compromise or outside mediation. While American “mediation” of
the kind that had been followed in Rhodesia eventually forced the expulsion
of Ian Smith’s government, Edwards believed that this policy was not appli-
cable to South Africa, as it could very likely prove counterproductive to
American business interests, and therefore to U.S. interests.
Certainly, the new Carter administration, in its rhetoric on human rights
and on apartheid, was useful, but Edwards was certain that it would not bow
to black African demands for an economic boycott. Too many vital economic
interests were at stake. Lip service would be paid to human rights, followed
by some modest tightening of existing arms embargoes and the termination
of official military, scientific, and economic cooperation, along with a diminu-
tion of certain diplomatic representation and the reduction of government
financing. But a fundamental alteration of the U.S.-South African relation-
ship, particularly with respect to the United States’ heavy direct investment
in the South African economy, could not be expected or even proposed.
Bringing about real “change” was not to be portrayed as being on the
agenda. In contrast, the U.S. administration could be expected to expand its
programs of economic assistance to black states surrounding South Africa
and to provide genuine help to Botswana and Lesotho, nations already heav-
ily burdened by the flow of refugees.
It was in the context of this stunningly realistic and perceptive analysis of
the race relationship in South Africa and how it impinged upon America that
Edwards assumed the task of outlining what the Ford Foundation should do.
The initial task revolved around the extreme complexity and delicacy of the
issue. With complications and uncertainty mounting, and in view of the vir-
tual or near absence of research information and documentation, Edwards
concentrated heavily upon the urgent need to obtain the services of a broad
variety of established scholars, research, and policy organizations. But the
research and documentation was not to be restricted only to foundation
guidance: it was also geared toward orienting a generally uninformed American
public as to what was at stake, the alternatives involved, and what could be
expected from differing approaches.
Versed in the literature of the field, Edwards thought it appropriate to
describe the expected flow of scholarly publications. First to be mentioned
was a series of books on southern Africa to be published by the University of
California Press. It was intended to be “the most solid single corpus of infor-
mation about the region.” Edwards noted that the foundation’s Middle East
and Africa Division would be providing its support for the work.9 It was in
mid-1977 that he mentioned this, but it was not until 1981 that the initial
volume, titled South Africa: Time Running Out, t was to be published. The
sizable 517-page study was supervised by a “Study Commission on U.S.
Policy toward Southern Africa,” which included almost a dozen academ-
ics, university administrators, and top business officials. The project was
launched in 1978 by the Rockefeller Foundation, but the commission chair-
man was identified in the 1981 volume as Franklin A. Thomas, who had
become president of the Ford Foundation in 1979. The staff of the commis-
sion study totaled some seventy-five individuals and included top academic
research specialists and corporate executives.10 Edwards did not say much
about the planned study, but its significance, as shall be noted later, was great.
The then prominent Boston scholarly journal, Daedalus, s was planning a
volume of essays on various aspects of southern Africa to be completed in
eighteen months.11 Edwards thought the plan “timely,” and its expected
“high quality” led him to recommend a grant of $120,000. The Washington,
D.C.,-based Brookings Institution had proposed a major academic confer-
ence on southern Africa. It requested $125,000–$150,000. With that aca-
demic institution offering major “African exposure,” and with the expectation
that what might emerge were several books, he thought the project “highly
desirable.” He was also looking forward to the New York–based Council
on Foreign Relations completing plans for a project that would ultimately
produce a book “that would focus on the relationship of Africa to other
American interests.” Discussions at the time were proceeding with the
Ford Foundation on how a variety of issues might be fully covered in the
planned study.
Additional grants were contemplated for a conference that was to be
sponsored by the African-American Institute in 1979 at a cost of about
ninety thousand dollars. Its last conference revealed “the passion of black
Americans” about South Africa. In his view, a conference by the group would
provide “a slice of life to which the . . . [existing Carter] Administration and
the Congress needed exposure.” A three-year grant of seventy-five thousand
dollars was also to be made to the principal black U.S. grant organization,
the Phelps-Stokes Fund. Finally, Edwards advised that the foundation staff
needed to be “alert to opportunities for research and analyses.”12 The gap in
the country’s knowledge about the subject and the urgency of dealing with
it prompted him to give special emphasis to the academic gap that urgently
required filling. Related to the problem of obtaining data and documenta-
tion was his recognition that supporting research “inside” South Africa was
problematic and could be undertaken with “great care.” An exception was

the Institute of Race Relations, which had been a foundation grantee since
1952. A modest grant of forty thousand dollars to this organization for it to
complete a revision of its digest of apartheid legislation was endorsed.
Information and documentation may have been of importance in enlight-
ening America on all levels with reference to southern Africa. But the foun-
dation’s primary concern had always been the advancement of human rights,
or, as Edwards now put it, “to see that the question of human misery of
innocent people is diminished” and, where possible, “non-racialism, human-
ity and justice are promoted.” With South Africa taking on “increasingly
the character of a police state,” and “survival” a predominant consideration,
what priorities were to be followed? The first item mentioned was the
Southern Africa Project of the foundation-sponsored Lawyers Committee
for Civil Rights under Law. That project had only recently been created, and
Edwards was less than precise in his discussion of it. He cautioned, “[the
project] will bear watching to see to it that it maintains a strategic focus on
its activities.”13 “Strategic focus” was not defined. Did he mean it was to
take account of America’s “strategic interest?” He was also uncertain as
to whether the South African legal system offered at least a modest window
for the protection of basic human rights. He implied that if the window no
longer existed, funding of the Southern Africa Project would no longer be
continued. Only for the time being should subsidization of the Project at the
prevailing rate of fifty thousand dollars per annum be followed.
On a related subject, Edwards appeared to welcome the establishment of
a “Law Foundation” as a separate “legal aid structure that might promote
pro bono legal activities” where the legal profession was “circumscribed by
apathy, conservatism and harassment.” He strongly favored the picture of
“whites working visibly with blacks to assist the ideal of non-racial justice.”
Were this to be realized through the Law Foundation, he said, “the [Ford]
Foundation could provide consulting and organizing support.” Nonetheless,
Edwards remained incorrigibly “pessimistic.” Human rights violations, he
believed, would become so bad that the temporary solution would not rest
with lawyers or legal institutions but rather with appropriate “instruments of
the mitigation of savagery and the succoring of mass misery.” For this reason,
he looked to the possible useful role to be played by the International
Committee of the Red Cross. Edwards was obviously impressed with Heaps’s
report on the ICRC (Edwards had accompanied Heaps to Geneva). The
organization’s “operational experience and professionalism” prompted him
to be an advocate of a grant to it in 1977 of $250,000. This would enable the
ICRC to establish a “permanent presence” in Pretoria, the capital of South
Africa, in order to prepare “against expected times of greater violence.”
Refugee problems were not neglected. Referring to how the Middle East
and Africa Division had arranged for David Heaps to travel to Botswana and
discuss with its administration a range of organizational, informational,
and programmatic responses to help relieve the crisis, Edwards indicated that
the Ford Foundation was committed to playing “an advisory role to strengthen
Botswana’s capacity to analyze and react to [the refugee] circumstances.”

Not neglected, either, was the scholarship program earlier projected for the
foundation to strengthen, educationally, future junior faculty at black col-
leges in the “Homeland” areas through advanced-degree study abroad. In
this way, Edwards believed, the foundation would also produce trained man-
power for a future nonracial society.
Anticipating future strategies that the foundation might want to under-
take, Edwards disclosed that the foundation’s Finance Division would be
taking account of the South African internal situation when it planned invest-
ment policies. This subject was earlier avoided. Indeed, the Middle East and
Africa Division, for the first time, he recalled, had shortly met with the staff
of the foundation Finance Division to study U.S. corporate practices in
South Africa. Anticipated, too, was the creation of “a monitoring point in the
U.S. for these [corporate] practices.” Clearly, Edwards took great pride in
the geographic division he had headed. He observed, in a closing note, that
while differences of opinion regarding South Africa inevitably cropped up
among staff members, emphasis was placed on reaching decisions through
the consensus process. As described by him, decisions were not reached
until the issue was “hammered out among colleagues.” Appended to his final
report was a listing of grant expenditures for southern Africa. By mid-1977,
the amount totaled $908,058, almost one million dollars, which was about
double that of the amount in 1974, when it stood at $517,634.14
Very soon after Edwards completed his summary report on the South
African situation and left his post at the foundation, a second major turning
point of repression took place. On October 19, 1977, leading moderate
black personages and organizations were subject to “banning” by the South
African authorities. The “banning” of an individual meant that he or she was
confined to the territory he lived in or to his or her home—a sort of house
arrest. He or she could also be limited in discussions that he or she might
wish to have with persons outside of the immediate family. The “banning” of
organizations, in essence, meant that their operations were closed down. In
addition, the “banning process” meant that a number of individuals associ-
ated with the organization might be arrested. The total was quite high:
twenty organizations, including the leading black newspaper, The World,
were “banned” and sixty persons were either “banned” or arrested.15
The striking feature of this fairly massive crackdown was that the individ-
uals and organizations involved were by no means considered militant; on
the contrary, they were known to be, in the main, moderate voices in the
black community. Typical of the targets was Percy Quoboza, the editor of
The World. Others banned were the Committee of Ten and the Black Parents
Association, both moderate advocates of the pupils of the Soweto schools
who were on strike. Most of the members of the two groups were arrested
and detained by the authorities. “Banned,” too, was the multiracial group,
the Christian Institute, whose head, Beyers Naude, a liberal white minister,
was widely known in the West. A second prominent moderate who was
banned was Donald Woods of the Daily Dispatch, a liberal publication that
was rather widely read. “Banned,” too, was the Black People Movement,
founded by Steve Biko and designed to reflect Biko’s “black consciousness”
philosophy. Overtly, his ideology was dedicated to the nonviolent resolution
of racial tensions in South Africa.
What may have prompted the apartheid government’s newly intensified
repressive campaign was the continuation of the school boycott by school
children in Soweto. The student determination was backed by the teachers in
secondary schools and by four of their five principals. Another consideration
in the Soweto community was the government’s insistence, in its “Homeland”
policy, on rejecting the right of blacks to hold permanent residence and perma-
nent employment in urban areas. The government’s campaign was met by a
determined effort to legitimize the actual black family presence in those areas.
Some in the West may have been shocked by this harsh decision of the
authorities so soon after the brutal suppression of the Soweto pupil strike
against the regime’s requirements that they learn the Afrikaans language.
The foundation’s expert on the subject of apartheid, Sheila McLean, was not
surprised, however. She saw the October 19 “bannings” and detentions as a
reflection of the “conscious racism of the white society [of South Africa].”
She wrote, “the apartheid government’s decision has been a consistent reac-
tion for more than three-quarters of a century.” Specifically, the regime has
been determined to suppress black organizations, whether established to
importune or to confront the government. Those “banned,” she said, sought
only to “importune,” not to “confront,” the regime in any way, certainly not
by violence.16
McLean arrived in South Africa only a few weeks after the government crack-
down. She was joined the week after her arrival by foundation vice-president,
David Bell, and by William Carmichael, to inspect the foundation’s “limited
program of activities in South Africa.” Her report, entitled “Visit to South
Africa,” which ran forty-six pages, was remarkably perceptive and keenly
analytical. Strikingly, unlike her earlier memorandum, in her new report,
McLean refused to wallow in pessimism. Even if she found “almost complete
polarization of the black and white communities,” meetings for her and her
foundation colleagues could still be arranged with black individuals and
groups, despite the fact that the formerly helpful Christian Institute was now
banned, and the Institute of Race Relations was no longer functioning
effectively.
And, despite polarization, she learned of a number of positive develop-
ments from Professor Lawrence Schlemmer of the University of Natal, who
was a grantee of the Ford Foundation. Especially important was his research
finding that the dominant political party, the National Party, was far from
having a unitary position on race. His data showed that 40 percent of the
voters for this party would want to give the “colored” or mixed race group-
ing full franchise rights. A similar attitude prevailed in the government cabi-
net prior to the recent election.17 Another Afrikaaner professor, André Du
Toit, a political theorist, had concluded on the basis of his studies that the
so-called “laager” mentality of the Afrikaaners was not a totally accurate
perception. McLean and her colleagues found evidence that an “enlightened”

segment of the Afrikaaner community was “gaining strength or the courage
to speak out publicly.” Certain indications were especially welcome. The
leading Afrikaaner academic institution, the University of Stellenbosch, was
going to admit, in the next term, nonwhite students for the first time. In
addition, young professors at another prominent Afrikaaner university had
recently issued a human rights declaration.
A reflection of the variety of political views was the appearance of a new
political party, the Progressive Party, which won a modest number of seats in
the Parliament. The new party called for the establishment of a multiracial
government. Of particular significance was the public inquest into the death
of Steve Biko, on September 12, 1977, which had begun shortly before
McLean’s arrival. She arranged to attend the inquest soon after its opening
and was impressed by how Biko’s attorneys “produced chilling revelations
about the much-feared security policy, [about] treatment of political prison-
ers and [about] discrepancies in police accounts of Mr. Biko’s death.” Initially,
the minister of justice of the apartheid regime had declared that Biko had
died from his own hunger strike. During the inquest, the family’s attorneys
were able to reveal that he had died from brain injuries. And, even later, they
would disclose that the brain injuries were a result of brutal torture con-
ducted by the security police.
McLean found it striking and revealing that during the inquest, once the daily
legal session ended, black laborers and students gathered outside the build-
ing and raised their voices in song. The text of the song contended that the
minister of justice would not be permitted to enter heaven, while the Biko
family attorneys, who were both black and white, would be permitted in. The
foundation staffer commented that blacks were still able to distinguish
between the white oppressor and those few whites in South Africa who dis-
played “the courage to assist them in their struggle.”
It was especially significant that the inquest was public. That circumstance
made possible press coverage. South Africans and the international commu-
nity, noted McLean, “learned of the treatment of political prisoners.”18 The
white press had not been stifled, therefore, a certain accuracy of the South
African racial situation could be ascertained. Even earlier, when in 1977 the
trial was held of the leaders of the Black Peoples’ Convention and the South
African Student Organization, the proceedings were widely reported in the
South African press, both the white and black press, including testimony by
Steve Biko on the “Black Consciousness” movement.
The McLean report was also revealing in noting that, along with Bell and
Carmichael, she was accompanied by a special foundation consultant, Desaix
Myers, III. His consultation dealt with transnational corporations in the
South African economy, particularly as a possible force for improved working
conditions for blacks. She specifically observed that Myers was there “review-
ing the labor practices” of American corporations in South Africa. She noted,
too, that during her visit, Polaroid, the giant film corporation, was halting its
operations in South Africa because its film was being used to implement the
harsh pass laws. Also reported at the time was that the well-known interna-
tional corporation Gulf & Western would cease all further investments of cap-
ital in Natal’s sugar plantations. How decisions involving Polaroid and Gulf &
Western were reached was not touched upon. Still, they signaled a respon-
siveness in the American corporate community to blatant forms of discrimi-
nation and human rights violations.
Listed as a primary aim of McLean and her associates in visiting South
Africa in November–December 1977 was to “assess the work” of the foun-
dation’s crucial grantee, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under
Law and its Southern Africa Project. In her initial broaching of this subject,
McLean observed that the foundation’s “two major themes” in its program
in South Africa were human rights and the law, and they required providing
training opportunities for blacks. Unlike Edwards, whose report was pre-
pared the previous year, McLean saw the Lawyers Committee as a top prior-
ity. Nor was there any suggestion that its funding might be cut off. Edwards
had expressed a certain doubt about the committee’s “strategic” plans. No
such doubt was expressed now. On the contrary, the observations about
the committee and its Project were more than laudatory.
The committee’s Southern Africa Project was described as “the major
U.S.—and possibly international—center of legal advice, action and infor-
mation about human rights issues in South Africa.” Discussions with South
African sources had convinced the foundation investigatory team “that
defense attorneys in South Africa find the intellectual and monetary support
of the Lawyers Committee important in their work.”19 In the Biko inquest,
the committee, together with the American Bar Association, had sent one of
America’s most prominent legal specialists, Louis Pollack, dean of the
University of Pennsylvania Law School, as an observer. The committee also
provided extensive assistance, both legal and financial, to Sydney Kentridge,
a white lawyer who was the lead advocate for the Biko family.
The praise of the Lawyers Committee was of the highest order. Its work
with the South African bar was declared to be “extremely valuable.” Besides
its legal work, the committee and its Southern Africa Project were acclaimed
for their work in alerting “the American legal community and through it, the
public, business, and government agencies to the human rights situation in
Southern Africa.” Still, throughout the report, the fear was expressed that
the South African government might prevent outside and foreign funding
of the Project. No immediate threat, however, was forthcoming.
A second legal form of assistance was also projected by McLean. During
the course of the past years, consideration was given in Johannesburg to cre-
ating a public-interest law effort. This would have a tripartite character: a
public interest advocacy arm, a research component, and a link to the
University of Witwatersrand Law School and its “legal clinics.” One of the
country’s top black lawyers, Arthur Chaskelson, had expressed a desire to
forgo his private practice and run the advocacy arm. (Once South Africa was
freed from the apartheid system, Chaskelson would become chief justice of
its Constitutional Court.) Another prominent law expert, John Dugard, the
dean of the University of Witwatersrand Law School, had offered to head up

the research arm. Finally, Felicia Kentridge, who ran the law clinics at the
university, agreed to serve in an advisory role to the school’s clinics, which
would become a major source of the work of the research and advocacy
groups. The significance of this development cannot be exaggerated, as the
law clinics had already been preoccupied with black issues and their clients
were exclusively black. For example, one of the clinics dealt with consumer
and housing problems arising out of racial classification. A second clinic was
concerned with labor law and focused on worker organizations as well as on
victimization. Since the foundation had expressed a keen interest in the tripar-
tite project, it was certain to render financial assistance.
Included in the major law and human rights themes, if only tangentially,
was the International Committee of the Red Cross. David Heaps, in his con-
sultative mission for the foundation during the previous year, had focused
upon the ICRC. McLean now revealed that the International Committee
was given two hundred fifty thousand dollars by the foundation to enable it
to act as “a potential peacemaker and influential point of contact” with all
parties in South Africa. The ICRC, at the probable suggestion of Heaps,
committed itself to opening a small office in Pretoria. Its personnel would be
enabled to visit black prisoners and detainees and to seek to improve condi-
tions during their incarceration. Clearly, various functions of the ICRC were
related to the foundation’s expectation that the apartheid system would
inevitably breed more and more prisoners and detainees.
A second NGO related to legal defense work was the South African Council
of Churches, the only multiracial operation in the country. Concerned as it
was with the problems of the urban black community, the council also acted
as a kind of defender of the “banned” organizations. Trust funds had been
accumulated by the Council to enable it to hire defense counsel for detainees
in Johannesburg. The mere fact that some lawyers from major law firms had
agreed to serve as lawyers for the defense had already resulted, reported
McLean, in “dozens of [prosecution] cases . . . being withdrawn.”20 The
prosecutors feared an embarrassing loss in the courtroom or with public
opinion. The fact, too, that black prisoners may have white defense lawyers
could diminish somewhat the suspicion of the blacks about whites and their
legal system. Carmichael was reported to be considering a modest grant to
the council to arrange for the training of a black attorney.
The second overriding theme of the foundation—the rights of black work-
ers and unions—was, naturally, given attention, but not to the same extent as
the legal defense work, which was a result of South Africa’s growing and pal-
pable security concerns. McLean’s report, nonetheless, did take note that
black unions not only existed in South Africa, especially in the Durban area,
but also that, indeed, they were one of two major “legitimate organizing
[mechanisms] for black communities”—the other being churches. Nonetheless,
she and her colleagues did not have enough time “to get deeply into the area
of labor relations and black workers rights.”21 That was regrettable, as the
black unions would later play an extraordinary role in the struggle against
apartheid.
Already, the issue of black workers’ rights had moved higher on the gov-
ernment’s agenda with the appointment of a new government labor commis-
sion. One of the country’s top academics, the economist Professor Francis
Wilson of the University of Cape Town, was conducting special research into
the problems of migratory labor. He had already been a source of valuable
information to the foundation on the subject. In addition, the foundation
had made a grant to an American professor of labor law at Stanford University
Law School to prepare a law review article on South African labor law.
Especially challenging was information that “a small group of young lawyers
and labor activists” in South Africa were already “working with black unions
and black workers.” She speculated, not surprisingly, that “there may be pro-
gram opportunities in this area.”
Even if the refugee issue involving youngsters fleeing to Botswana and
other small states near South Africa, as well as to larger black states, was not
among the defined top priorities of the foundation, the subject was hardly
neglected. McLean expected “increased black South African refugees in
Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho and even Mozambique.” The refugees were
described as mainly “young, poorly-educated and highly politicized.” Heaps
had already provided some consulting work on the refugee subject even
though, unfortunately, McLean and her highly placed foundation colleagues
on this particular trip had “not been in touch with this aspect of South
Africa’s human rights problem.” McLean nonetheless felt it essential to
“keep informed of developments” and, more importantly, to “consider ways
in which the foundation might make an appropriate contribution.” It was
already abundantly tragic and apparent that the big influx of teenagers to the
schools in nearby countries was enormously burdensome on these institu-
tions. The prevailing resources of these countries could hardly be tapped. In
addition, it was known that some of the young people would prefer oppor-
tunities for advanced training.
If in Chile or Argentina during the seventies the refugees issue was inter-
twined with the liberal intellectuals, who had always been a primary focus of
the Ford Foundation, the subject was quite different in the South African sit-
uation. In the latter case, the refugees were all black. Their legal defenders
were largely white and therefore might face harsh threats from others in the
white community. Still, some white liberal intellectuals were confronted with
difficulties in getting published or in obtaining permission to travel abroad.
In this way, their intellectual futures could be jeopardized. About half a
dozen such cases were listed by McLean as she went out of her way to note
that some of them were “unable to get funding . . . for research.” She
stressed that the Ford Foundation “should be open to requests from them.”
The reason was self evident: their research was of a character “to challenge
the underpinnings of [apartheid’s] social and economic system.”22 Among
the names were Francis Wilson and Lawrence Schlemmer.
After the delineation of the liberal intellectual problem, McLean took

some pains to examine and evaluate a long-time grantee of the foundation,
the Institute of Race Relations. Some of the criticism was rather sharp. This
group was said to be “not in touch with the black community,” and it was
noted that it “[lacked] vitality.” While it worked on putting together its
annual and “indispensable” volumes on Legislation and Race Relations, s there
was hope that the institute could “recover some of its energy in the future.”
Recent information about new appointments to the institute’s board sug-
gested that significant improvement might result. Among the changes was
the naming of Sheena Duncan to the board. She was identified as the leading
figure of the Black Sash, which McLean described as doing an effective
job in assisting blacks dealing with the complex web of migratory family
influx controls.
Highlighted in her survey was the critical need to provide fellowships for
blacks seeking higher academic degrees outside of South Africa. This was
seen as crucial because young black Africans had nothing but contempt for
the “Homeland” universities, whose educational legitimacy was vigorously
questioned. Targeted as alternatives were correspondence courses with the
so-called University of South Africa and universities in the United States. A
welcome development was the willingness of the Federal Theological
Seminary, which prepared ministers for several Protestant denominations to
accept blacks into the profession. Carmichael and McLean engaged in con-
versation with the seminary in which they discussed that the foundation
would offer grants to prospective seminary trainees.
Special attention was paid to offering training opportunities for teachers
of black primary and secondary school students. As the issue of better and
more effective training of teachers was seen as being of “critical importance,”
some urged, as a priority matter, the establishment of “a center for this pur-
pose.”23 In McLean’s view, the priority agenda item ought to be scholarships
or fellowships. She was looking toward a future when black South Africans
would assume “leadership roles in their own country.” It was through pro-
grams of educational training that the foundation “could help prepare” for
this outcome.
But, for the present, it was clear that the preeminent concern of the foun-
dation was the virulent crackdown on the militancy that had spread to the
youth since the school strike of June 1976. For the foundation, the primary
need was the funding of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law
and its Southern Africa Project. An initial grant of fifty thousand dollars
in 1972 had proved to be most useful, and it pointed toward the general
direction the foundation would go with respect to this key NGO. It was a
relationship in some ways similar to the relationship the foundation would
develop with the U.S. Helsinki Watch in 1978 and then later with the Human
Rights Watch.
In 1973, the foundation had continued its initial grant to the Lawyers
Committee, but this time for $74,278 beginning April 1, 1973, an amount
that was to run for eighteen months.24 Three reasons for the allocation deci-
sion were offered by the Middle East and Africa Division in urging the grant.
The first was of critical importance as long as the white-controlled regimes of
South Africa publicly endorsed the “rule of law” as a fundamental principle.
Courts and lawyers could play a modest role in questioning and mitigating
the arbitrary and often brutal exercise of state power. The opportunity was
thus provided for using and exploiting legal institutions. Very much interre-
lated to the use of the law and legal institutions was the second reason:
“focusing world attention” on the repression by the apartheid regime. It was
precisely the “judicial process” that provided the “mechanism” for affecting
international opinion.25 The third reason was especially intriguing. Were the
American legal community more informed on the functioning of apartheid
and its repressive political and social character, it would be able to exert a
“significant impact” on the U.S. public, and more importantly, on corpora-
tions and on the U.S. government. The United States was seen as critical,
and therefore public opinion and the policy of American business as well as
that of the administration were seen as having great potential leverage in
affecting apartheid.
From the perspective of the foundation, the role for the Lawyers Committee
with specific reference to the apartheid issue was unparalleled. It called the
committee “the principal U.S. organization focusing on legal issues” and
mentioned that the committee occupied “a unique position.”26 Since the
committee began functioning with foundation funding in 1972, it had
already taken on nine cases under the rubric of its South Africa Litigation
Program. But the Litigation Program went far beyond purely legal defense
work. The background and issues involved in these cases, said the founda-
tion, had been “widely publicized” through cables, letters, and reports deal-
ing with particular trials. The result was to bring these trials “to the notice”
of the world. Thus the very nature of the litigation process, through the
committee’s “public information role,” was deemed “important.”
Of particular relevance was how the committee dealt with the business
practices of U.S. corporate firms in relation to South Africa. A central moral
issue for transnational U.S. corporations revolved around discriminatory
employment practices. The hiring of only white workers for specific jobs and
the payment of black labor at lower wage levels than white labor may not
have been countenanced in the United States. But in South Africa, it was
thought or assumed by the transnational enterprises that nondiscrimina-
tory labor practices would be considered illegal under local law. What the
committee’s research showed, however, was that nondiscrimination, in many
instances, was “legally permissible.” Thus, the committee could and did take
on a consultative capacity to a range of businesses and investor groups in the
United States. To the foundation, this distinctive committee function was
seen as most valuable.
Equally valuable to the foundation was the legal action taken by the com-
mittee in U.S. courts about South Africa. Thus, it challenged an action of the
Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) granting landing rights to South African

Airways. Also challenged in court were the practices of the New York Times
to accept discriminatory advertising for various jobs in South Africa. Finally,
the committee took legal action to prohibit the import of certain goods pro-
duced in South Africa and Namibia on grounds that they were produced by
forced labor and were, therefore, in violation of international law.
Precisely because law, in various guises, served as the core of the commit-
tee, it was hardly accidental that a special subcommittee made up of top
lawyers would be created in 1973 to supervise the Southern African Project.
While the board and executive committee of the group comprised promi-
nent members of the legal profession, the subcommittee’s membership was
especially outstanding. The chairman, George Lindsay, was from the top-
level law firm of Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyon and Gates. A second key figure,
Theodore Sorenson, came from the equally impressive firm of Paul, Weiss,
Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison. (Sorenson had been President Kennedy’s
principal White House staffer and speech writer.) The dean of the Catholic
University Law School, Clinton Bamberger, also served on the subcom-
mittee, as did the very talented senior staff lawyer of the NAACP, James
Nabrit, III.
With this impressive composition, hardly anyone could doubt that the
Lawyers Committee could reach key and powerful members of the American
legal community. Contacts would inevitably follow with respect to major
corporate enterprises and the U.S. government. Inevitable, too, was the
raising in the legal community of an awareness of the deep-rooted social and
moral problems of apartheid. At the same time, statements and reports of the
committee were certain to win attention in the media, and its expertise could
not easily be questioned or challenged. Flowing from the prestigious charac-
ter of its policy makers was the ability to reach out and seek pro bono legal
services on a variety of levels. In addition, the stature of the committee could
command contributions from various well-to-do law firms. Thus, the
Lawyers Committee could supplement its limited Ford Foundation contri-
bution with supplementary sources totaling thirty thousand dollars the
previous year.
It goes without saying that the foundation would be most pleased by the
work of this NGO, even if “the impact of the Southern African Litigation
Program [was] likely to be minimal in terms of effecting fundamental
changes in that part of the world.” Nonetheless, the foundation summary
indicated that the impact of the Lawyers Committee on the United States
could be considerable.27 With time, the impact of the legal defense system
upon South Africa directly would grow and deepen. Certainly, the stress upon
the law met with strong approval by the foundation. Elsewhere, too, whether
in Latin America or in the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, great emphasis
was placed by the foundation upon legal issues and the role of the law. But,
with reference to South Africa, for a variety of reasons, the significance could
not possibly be greater.
In making its 1973 grant, the Ford Foundation concluded that if the
Lawyers Committee’s Southern Africa Project “continue[d] to be successful,
MEA [Middle East and African Division] would consider the advisability of
renewing support at a reduced level.”28 The final comment at the very end
of the grant statement was instructive. Uncertainty reigned as to whether
the Lawyers Committee would be successful, and even if it were, the level
of the eighteen-month grant, at the very best, might still be reduced. Stun-
ningly, the grant awarded to the Lawyers Committee by the foundation on
February 10, 1975, totaled one hundred thousand dollars covering two
years, beginning on October 1, 1974.29 At times, a foundation grant would
be extended to cover earlier expenses of the grantee. This positive response
to the Lawyers Committee, despite “declining Foundation budgets,” resulted
from the foundation’s assessment that “in South Africa, the courts and
lawyers [continued] to play a role in challenging arbitrary exercise of power
and in abating injustice in individual cases.” In addition, this role provided “a
focal point” for world attention. Finally, given the special lobbying activity in
the United States by the Lawyers Committee, the “informal American legal
community” was expected to “have an impact on public business and gov-
ernment perceptions” of the South African problem.
One reason suggested in the grant for extending the assistance at the same
level of approximately fifty thousand dollars per year was the increased num-
ber of “political trials under the vast array of security legislation” in South
Africa. During the past year, the foundation had found that the Southern Africa
Project had “provided assistance in the form of funds, briefings, research and
legal observers” for twelve cases in southern Africa, including Namibia. A
second reason offered was that “the scope [of the committee] [had] now
been broadened to include the field of labor relations and collective bargain-
ing rights for black workers.” What was found by the foundation to be “most
encouraging” was an “increasing cooperation” in defending South Africans
between the Lawyers Committee and other human rights organizations—the
International League for the Rights of Man, Amnesty International, and
the World Council of Churches. David Heaps of the Ford Foundation had
already laid the groundwork for the cooperation, an indication of how inti-
mately the foundation was involved. In reaching out and bringing in other
NGOs, the Lawyers Committee was identified in the grant as “principally
responsible” for the new “degree of cooperation.” Indeed, the committee
was now perceived as being “the principal coordinator for legal assistance in
Southern Africa.”30
Other new functions assumed by the committee also proved to be partic-
ularly impressive to the foundation. In the first place, it became the leading
advisor to all organizations and virtually every institution dealing with south-
ern Africa. The foundation grant report specified the following “clients” of
the committee’s program: U.S. companies with business interests in south-
ern Africa, human rights and welfare agencies, church groups, the American
Committee on Africa, the African-American Institute, congressional committees,
and the State Department. The foundation observed that the Lawyers Com-
mittee “had become a major clearing house and resource base” on apartheid.
And in those instances “where legal research [was] needed, they have been
successful in arranging for pro bono services of major law firms.”
This remarkable achievement had been made possible by a vast dissemina-
tion of information on South Africa, its legal issues, and its events through
newsletters, reports, press releases, and staff testimony. In addition, the com-
mittee organized seminars and speakers for interested law schools. In
response, some law firms sent the committee interns who could prove most
useful in furthering its research programs. At a level much higher, the committee
could arrange for groups of prominent lawyers to attend legal conferences in
South Africa, as, for example, one conference in 1973 at the University of
Natal (funded by the foundation).
Unusually impressive were the legal actions in American courts on South
African issues. As the Lawyers Committee took over these functions and
thereby became “the chief attorney” on these issues, it won such prominent
allies as the United Mine Workers of America and the state of Alabama, as
separate plaintiffs in specific cases. Four cases stood out in which the commit-
tee performed the “chief attorney” role: the New York Times was enjoined
from publishing want ads for employment in South Africa; South African
Airways was required to hire blacks for its U.S. operations and was required
to terminate discriminatory practices on domestic flights; the U.S.
Commerce Department was stopped from sending special trade missions to
Namibia; and by virtue of a U.S. court decision prohibiting the importation
of coal from South Africa, the South African Parliament was compelled to
repeal certain labor laws imposing criminal sanction for breaches of contract.
Significantly, the committee rejected suggestions that it broaden its man-
date to include “general human rights issues.” Its exclusive preoccupation
with legal issues in South Africa appeared to have foundation support, as it
refrained from articulating any criticism of this specified limitation. On the
other hand, the foundation expressly raised concerns about the ability of
the committee to raise funds from other sources. If the committee was suc-
cessful in raising funds for specific activity, its failure to raise sizable funding
for core expenditures could not fail to be a matter of some concern to the
foundation, which traditionally raised this matter with NGO grantees. At
the same time, however, the foundation recognized that its “support” for the
present activities of the committee’s Southern Africa Project was indispensa-
ble; otherwise, a cutback in funding would “undermine the momentum of
previous efforts.”
The Lawyers Committee had sought $191,000, a sum almost twice the
size of the actual grant. If the foundation compromised with its earlier aim
of reducing previous grant levels, it still insisted that the committee find
“alternative sources of support.”31 The foundation once again warned that
“future” assistance would be considered, but only at a very substantially
reduced level. Still, foundation executives went on to laud the committee’s
activities. In doing so, the foundation recognized that it could not easily
sacrifice a major instrument even when, and if, other sources of funding were
not immediately forthcoming.
Indeed, a promised reduction of the annual rate of the foundation’s grant
to the Lawyers Committee could not possibly be accepted. A significant
worsening of the internal state pressures in South Africa, flowing from the
Soweto race riots of June 1976, would make it extremely difficult and morally
intolerable to cut necessary funding of defense security cases. Besides, posi-
tive philanthropic factors also impacted foundation decision makers. Financial
aid from a variety of other sources had grown because of dire urgency. The
increased funding sources diminished the pressure for any kind of cuts. In a
newly approved grant on January 28, 1977, that took the form of a memo-
randum from David Bell to McGeorge Bundy, dated three days earlier, one
hundred thousand dollars was once more allocated for a two-year period,
beginning October 1, 1976.32 The responsible program officer was desig-
nated as Robert Edwards.
The growing burdens to be shouldered by the Lawyers Committee were
patently evident. Between June 16, 1976, and November 30, 1976, it was
estimated by the Institute of Race Relations that 434 people were detained
under security legislation. That legislation included the Suppression of
Communism Act of 1950, the Public Safety Act of 1953, the Terrorism Act
of 1967, and the Internal Security Act of June 1976.33 These laws designed
to inhibit freedom of speech and association and suppress dissent specified
three levels of punishment: prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment; dete-
ntion in prison without charge as determined by an administrative official
who was not subject to a court review; and “banning,” which confined a per-
son to a limited area and barred his association with others.
The foundation grant noted that between 1974 and 1976, approximately
217 people had been detained, with only eighty-one charged in court. Many
of the latter group had been acquitted, or the regime had decided to with-
draw the charges. Some seventy-four remained until June 1976, after which
the crackdown struck many others. The riots took place during the course
of a year-long trial against leaders of the South African Student Organization
and the Black Peoples Convention. Judgment was finally rendered on December
16, 1976, with the conviction of nine black student leaders and the dismissal
of indictments against five others. Were it not for the vigorous defense made
possible by the Southern Africa Project, according to the foundation’s grant,
the defendants could have been sentenced to death or jail terms of twenty to
thirty years. Instead, the sentences ran to five and six years.
Besides the Lawyers Committee’s active legal defense work, it helped pre-
pare, during the same year of the trial, civil damage suits based on charges of
wrongful deaths. Such initiatives were undertaken at the behest of the fami-
lies of two black political activists after their arrest by the regime’s security
police. But state reaction to the dissent and opposition was only at its begin-
ning. About 2,900 persons awaited trials on criminal charges, according to the
foundation grant (in addition to the several hundred accused of breaching
the security laws). The defense work of the Lawyers Committee would be
occupying center stage.
But, it was not only in South Africa that the glare of public attention
would come to focus upon the Lawyers Committee. In the United States,
the committee, during 1976, succeeded in enjoining the government from
providing an import license to those seeking to acquire sealskins from
Namibia. The legal basis of the committee’s action was that the trade would
implicitly fail to recognize that Namibia was not legally part of South Africa
by virtue of a UN Security Council decision in 1966 that had made Namibia
independent. The committee’s objective, it is clear, was to prevent the
enhancement of the wealth or status of South Africa. In addition, the com-
mittee assisted various organizations and individuals who sought to bar the
sale to South Africa of highly-enriched uranium for a research reactor in
Johannesburg. Of special significance, noted the foundation grant, was the
distinctive role of the Lawyers Committee on Capitol Hill, with the State
Department, and with various religious and human rights groups in the
United States. Specifically, its staff was “called upon to organize and partici-
pate in conferences and consultations” with these policy-making or activist
groups dealing with South Africa. It could also serve to provide South African
defense lawyers as speakers at prominent legal functions in the United States.
The foundation grant, in detailing the new allocation, offered some fasci-
nating details on the impact the Lawyers Committee and its Southern Africa
Project had had upon major law firms in the United States. During 1975, a
minimum of 690 pro bono hours were contributed by private lawyers and law
firms to the Project. This was held to be “strikingly successful” in raising ade-
quate funding for litigation purposes. The successes prompted an enthusias-
tic response from the foundation.34 Equally helpful were funds provided
by the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church Center, the Field
Foundation, and the Aetna and Casualty Company. Even with the growth
of outside financing, the committee had made it clear to the foundation
that the annual rate of fifty thousand dollars was an “irreplaceable buttress
for the Project’s operation.”35 Evidence available to the foundation staff
found the argument compelling. Nevertheless, the staff concluded that the
Project’s work would be independently evaluated in the near future.
At the very end of the report on the grant, the foundation cautioned that
the general “human rights situation” in South Africa should not be neg-
lected. How to go beyond the enormously burdensome legal defense process
to maintain a certain “decency and humanity” within South Africa, the
report observed “will tax the Foundation’s ingenuity.” Still, abdication of
responsibility in this area would not be tolerated. Discussions with the
South African Institute of Race Relations, the International Committee of
the Red Cross, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees were antici-
pated with the thought of systematizing and expanding the program of legal
aid in South Africa.
The worsening situation within South Africa ineluctably compelled the

Ford Foundation to renew on April 9, 1979, its previous grants of one hun-
dred thousand dollars for a two-year period beginning October 1, 1978, to
the Lawyers Committee’s Southern Africa Project. Data made available
by the Project and spelled out in the grant gave emphasis to the unfolding
trauma: as of the day of the grant, there were sixty-six “terrorist” cases in var-
ious South African areas, as well as a minimum of 280 people in detention
without benefit of trial or charges. The Project staff anticipated the holding
of an additional sixty-seven political trials during the balance of the year. The
foundation grant further reported that statistics accumulated by the Institute
of Race Relations indicated that 1,358 persons had already been subjected
to “banning” since the process was instituted. An additional 146 fell victim to
“banning” orders.36
Strikingly, the Southern Africa Project came into its own with this grant.
Unlike prior grants that had highlighted the Lawyers Committee, of which
the Project was only a part, now reference to the committee was almost non-
existent, while the Project appeared front and center. Even if it only meant a
shuffling of the furniture, the emphasis provided a certain starkness to the
Project’s distinctiveness. This uniqueness in litigation applied both to involv-
ing South African defense lawyers, and to its consultation and lobbying role
with respect to the American legal community, the Congress, and the U.S.
administration. More expansively than in the past, the foundation described
the Project’s priority objectives. Emphasized was the determination of the
Project “to strengthen the ability of the courts and lawyers in South Africa
to challenge the arbitrary exercise of governmental power.” In realizing this
purpose, the Project “[had] made particular efforts to assure that black lead-
ers who [were] prosecuted under South Africa (and Namibia) security legis-
lation [had] access to able counsel.”37
In its legal defense work, the Project was described as being tormented by
a critical moral and political problem. It is a problem that goes to the very
heart of human rights issues when government is seen as blatantly evil. And,
as noted in the grant, the foundation, itself, became concerned with and
absorbed in the issue. The grant spells out the tormenting dilemma as fol-
lows: “The Project’s organizers and Foundation staff are aware, of course,
that the preservation of legal due process in a political system which is becom-
ing increasingly repressive runs the risk of dignifying [it] rather than prevent-
ing injustice.” It further noted that South Africa had “no constitution and no
bill of rights establishing standards of fundamental principles against which
laws are measured.”38 At that very moment, new laws were being enacted
that defined “even more narrowly the areas within which due process [could]
operate.” As similar circumstances had disturbed democratic activists in other
societies; would not the bringing of legal cases in repressive societies con-
tribute to legitimizing those societies?
What made the question even more poignant was that the rising level
of black resentment flowing from repression could produce an aggravated
downward spiral that would resist all efforts to abate. While the disturbing
problem was present from the beginning of the foundation’s efforts, it
inevitably was aggravated by the fierce hostility of the apartheid regime. No
quarter was being given on either side. The foundation acknowledged that it
was sufficiently troubled by the issue that it had held “discussions” with
South African lawyers and “others concerned with human rights in that
country, including many individuals who [had] been abused in detention or
‘banned’.” The “discussions” prompted the foundation to move ahead and
support litigation efforts. The Lawyers Committee had already endorsed the
idea of “the Project’s continuation.” The foundation, in its investigation,
found that “the timeliness, utility and professionalism of the Project’s activists
[abounded] in South Africa.”
The term “abounds” was rather strong and should have removed any
doubts about the purpose of the Project. Evidence had, however, accumu-
lated that showed that the very undertaking of the defense of accused indi-
viduals by competent attorneys resulted in the accused “receiving more
thorough trials, [in which they were] more frequently acquitted and, if found
guilty, [were] generally convicted on reduced charges and fewer counts.”39 A
certain social and human consideration was also advanced by foundation
sources. Everyone was aware that those white lawyers in South Africa who
courageously took on the defense of blacks had undertaken this task at “con-
siderable personal risk.” From the perspective of these sources, it was “impor-
tant for the future of South Africa that courageous whites demonstrate their
willingness to be associated with blacks and with the law as a device to
achieve fairness and humaneness.”
The foundation grant also took note of a rather obscure source of funding
for the Southern Africa Project: the United Nations Trust Fund. While
briefly referred to in previous grant reports, this time it was given more elab-
orate treatment.40 The UN Trust Fund was established in 1965 to channel
voluntary contributions of member nations into actions challenging racial
discrimination in South Africa. The Project arranged for more than $380,000,
since 1974, to be disbursed for the legal defense of individuals charged with
political crimes. It was this UN source of funding that enabled the Project
to financially handle the expensive and difficult work of political trials that
sometimes ran for a year or more.
The UN Trust Fund was only one of several sources of income for the
Project that, drawing upon foundation contacts, provided funding for expert
witnesses, legal observers, and judicial opinions on relevant points of South
African and international law. Directly arranged by the Project was for the
Biko family’s lawyer to travel to the United States and meet with medical
experts who were unavailable in South Africa. It also arranged, with the
help of the American Bar Association, for the renowned legal specialist
and dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Louis Pollack, to sit
in as an observer during the inquest. Upon his return, Pollack was able to
issue an “important” and widely-circulated report on the Biko legal case. Such
interventions by the Project that were extended to the Washington scene

could be quite effective on unrelated matters dealing with South Africa.
Thus, the Project, after characterizing apartheid’s brutality, could seek a
rejection of a plan to ship South Africa Cessna aircraft. As always, Project
staffers and volunteers were frequently called upon to participate in consul-
tations on Capitol Hill and at the State Department.
In Washington, it was apparent that the Project had taken on a preemi-
nent, virtually independent, and unequalled role in dealing with South Africa.
Rather quickly, it had lined up other prominent donors, including the
Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and various strategically placed church
groups. Once again, the Project committed itself to “reduce [its] depend-
ence on Foundation funding,” although this did not preclude “the possi-
bility of further modestly-scaled assistance” in 1981. And, indeed, the next
foundation grant to the Lawyers Committee’s Southern Africa Project
totaled a modestly scaled-down rate of eighty-five thousand dollars for two
years, beginning on October 1, 1980. Sufficient additional funding from the
Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, the Paul Guenther Foundation, and other
sources made the slight reduction possible while still maintaining the Ford
Foundation as the principal contributor to the core program of the Lawyers
Committee.
Chapter 9
A H i s to r i c Ro l e
By the beginning of the eighties, the struggle against apartheid had become
a priority concern of the foundation. Funds would be appropriated on vari-
ous levels to affect American and international public opinion. Of special
importance were grants to the foundation’s favorite nongovernmental organ-
ization, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, and to the com-
mittee’s especially vigorous operational arm, the Southern Africa Project. The
new grant to that body, even if slightly diminished from very recent years, was
still substantial.
The new grant reflected a major change in the very top leadership of the
foundation. Franklin Thomas had replaced McGeorge Bundy in the middle
of 1979, and, this time, when the allocation was made on August 29, 1980,
David Bell addressed the memorandum to Thomas.1 At the very beginning
of the foundation’s background report for the grant, it revealed that outside
additional funding enabled the foundation to provide funds to sources other
than the Project in order to assist additional “institutions engaged in defend-
ing the rights of victims of apartheid.” Thus, a grant was made to the Univ-
ersity of Witwatersrand in order to “strengthen the labor program of the
University’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies.”2 Apparently, this was not
the first time that the Centre had been given a grant. Of course, legal issues
involving the migratory labor problem in South Africa had become inter-
twined with legal defense. What was revealed here was how some South African
universities, including those founded by and serving the Afrikaaner commu-
nity, were becoming linked to a major human rights program to which the
foundation was committed.
Two earlier grants were made under the same rubric by the foundation.
The first, a rather large one, was given to the Legal Resources Centre, a “pub-
lic interest law firm” in Johannesburg. The total grant was for $210,000, an
amount that was to cover a three-year period beginning January 1979.3 It
was to provide direct legal assistance to black trade unions. The second
grant was to the South African Council of Churches, and it was designed to
help “train staff” for paralegal advisory services in black townships. It totaled
$19,500 and was to run for two years, starting in July 1978.4 Spelled out in
a footnote was the very significant sum of $424,553 given to the Southern
Africa Project over eight and one-half years since April 1972.
The background, as elaborated upon by the foundation in granting the
newest request of the Southern Africa Project, was fairly detailed. But stressed
this time was that the Project had been “involved in more cases” over the last
two years than at any other time in its history. Special attention was given to
its suit for damages in the death of Steve Biko while he was under detention.
This was referred to as the “primary” among the various cases. Significant,
too, as noted in the report, was a case referred to in the Project’s latest annual
report that involved the death of Mohle Mohapi while he was in police cus-
tody. The Southern Africa Project brought to South Africa a former agent
of the FBI and a leading forensic expert. He was able to provide evidence
demonstrating that the victim was killed while under police detention, reject-
ing the official assertion that he had committed suicide.
Of particular significance in highlighting the Project’s unusual versatility
was a meeting it hosted in October 1979, at which twenty-three South African
Parliament members came together with key U.S. Senate and House leaders.
The meeting enabled legislative officials to consider a range of issues affect-
ing U.S.-South African relations. Also noted in the grant was the fact that the
Project’s director at the time, Millard Arnold, had served as a member of
the U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on Human Rights. At the par-
ticular UN Commission session in Geneva, Arnold “gave a powerful and widely
quoted address on the American position vis-à-vis South Africa and the abridg-
ment of human rights in that country.”5
The 1980 grant was unusual in reporting what the Project planned to do
“during the years immediately ahead.” The focus was upon “the needs of
black law graduates.” An extraordinary leap was made in order to signifi-
cantly increase the number and improve the qualifications of African attor-
neys in South Africa. At the time, there were only seventy-five to eighty black
African lawyers in the entire country. As anticipated by the Project, approxi-
mately 10 to 15 percent of black African law graduates would serve in clerk-
ships in major law firms that were run by whites. In these clerkships, they
“would receive practical legal training under guidance of senior members of
white law firms.” Funding would be provided by the State Department and
by the UN Trust Fund, which had agreed to triple its annual subvention to
the Project in supplying counsel for defendants in political trials.
The proposed second initiative was a three-day workshop on civil and human
rights to be held in Johannesburg in late 1981. In attendance for informal
talks would be U.S. civil rights lawyers and their South African counterparts.
The noted purpose of the meeting was “to help combat the sense of isola-
tion” of the South African defense lawyers. Both initiatives were to be over-
seen by the special subgroup of the executive committee servicing the
Lawyers Committee. That unusual subgroup was authorized to review and
approve all proposed staff recommendations before any specific case was under-
taken by the Project. Individuals from several new and very prominent legal
firms had been added. Of interest was the fact that the former attorney
A Historic Role 187
general of President Jimmy Carter’s administration, Ramsey Clark, had been

added to replace Theodore Sorenson.
An odd note appeared at the end of the grant document. As with other
foundation documents, it pointed out that the Lawyers Committee had a
twenty-two-member staff of which fourteen were females and nine were
minority persons. Yet, for the foundation, this representation was called “dis-
appointing” even while it asserted that the committee was “strongly commit-
ted to affirmative action” in both program activities and hiring policies.
Apparently, the foundation was seeking perfection in employment ratios and
its “affirmative action” orientation. Of course, the foundation’s affirmative
action policy would be enormously enhanced by the choice of a black for the
top job. The selection of Thomas as president of the foundation was an
altogether unusual and remarkable appointment. He did not emerge from an
elitist category, like his predecessor; nor had he been reared in an upper-class
business world. Especially striking was the fact that he was black, the first of
that minority group to head a major American philanthropy.
Thomas was born in 1934 in a Brooklyn area hardly known for its wealth
or status—Bedford-Stuyvesant. Indeed, it acquired notoriety for its numer-
ous street gangs that made life itself a danger and an uncertainty. Encouraged
by his mother to reject any notion that external limits might hinder his
advancement, he went to Columbia College and, later, Columbia University
Law School. After short stints working in the Federal Housing and Home
Finance Agency and as assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of
New York, Thomas moved on to become deputy police commissioner
of New York in charge of legal matters.
Community development marked the next stage in a career constantly spi-
raling upwards. In 1967, at the rather tender age of thirty-two, he was
appointed as president and chief executive officer of a large-scale major com-
munity project—the Bedford-Stuyvesant Development Services and Restoration
Corporation. The area embraced four hundred thousand persons, the second
largest black community in the United States. Significantly, he was recom-
mended for the job by Robert Kennedy, then the senator from New York
State. His job covered an extensive variety of tasks—public services, building
restoration, finance and banking, and health and education—and constituted
a veritable hands-on rehabilitation approach to a vast community that was
greatly, even desperately, in need of repairs from the ground up. The Thomas
initiative proved highly successful in bringing about new jobs, homes, and
businesses, as well as a solid structure with a new spirit.6 After ten years,
Thomas retired from the job, and was accorded broad recognition in creat-
ing community solidarity.
A significant funder of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Corporation was the Ford
Foundation, and it was, perhaps, not too surprising that Thomas was invited
in 1978 to join the foundation’s board of trustees. Still, it was a rare appoint-
ment. The board was largely comprised of executives of vast corporate enter-
prises with a sprinkling of top-layer lawyers and academics. For a black man
to enter this rarefied atmosphere was most unusual. That Thomas made it
was indicative of how well he had already moved among the well-polished
giants of the corporate world. Even more stunning was the decision of the
board, after a year-long search by a high-level committee, to name Thomas
as foundation president. In a memorandum to the foundation staff, the
board chairman, Alexander Heard, who was president of Vanderbilt University,
waxed enthusiastic about the choice. “The Trustees look forward with keen
anticipation in working with Frank Thomas in the years ahead,” read the
memo.7
But while the appointment decision was made by the foundation’s
trustees, few could doubt that the markedly courageous act could not have
come about without a process that had been nurtured by McGeorge Bundy.
He had, from the very beginning, considered the race problem a central one
in American history, and had urged his staff “to come up with ideas for proj-
ects [on race issues] that the foundation could uniquely do,” as a foundation
officer recalled.8 Another program officer, Thomas Cooney, told an inter-
viewer that Bundy had “brought race and civil rights out of the closet.
And during the budget cuts of the last few years, he kept them from going
back in.”9
Not only on program matters had the foundation turned a corner under
Bundy; personnel-wise, a similar decisive change was made. For the first
time, two black program directors were named by Bundy. And he was the
first president to support the election of a black man to the board of trustees.
This person was, of course, Thomas. Later, when he was named foundation
president, the staff reaction to the selection was electrifying. Most staff mem-
bers had doubted that the trustees had the courage to name a black person
to a job of this magnitude, of foundation presidency.10 On the outside, the
response was a stunning one. Vernon Jordan, head of the Urban League,
observed, “this is the first real example of a case where whites have turned
over meaningful power to a black.” Interestingly, it was not the first time
that Thomas was offered an authoritative and powerful national position.
President Jimmy Carter, two years earlier, had asked him to become secretary
of Housing and Urban Development. Although Thomas turned down the
cabinet position, he was clearly highly regarded in prestigious circles.
A position in the government, even a top position, was, for Thomas, not
what he had been preparing himself for in his directorship of the Bedford-
Stuyvesant Corporation. He told a reporter for the New York Times that a
housing cabinet position would mean, “I would be spending half my time
or more testifying before committees of Congress about existing programs,
a lot of which I have questions about.”11 He sought to change things in a
fundamental way, not to implement existing programs. When the Ford
Foundation offer was extended, Thomas said, “all the vibrations felt right to
me.” As a member of the foundation’s board of trustees, he was deeply aware
of what it was doing, how it was “an initiator of activities,” how it was “open
to risk-taking,” and how it was flexible enough to “change directions with-
out having to write new legislation.”
A Historic Role 189
By the time Thomas became foundation president, as he acknowledged to

a reporter, he was keenly aware of its world-wide programs. When inter-
viewed in 2003, almost a decade after he left the presidency, he told the
interviewer that, while serving on the foundation’s board of trustees, “you
become aware of what the Foundation is doing in different parts of the
world.”12 Certainly, Thomas would have been quick to approve the Car-
michael breakthrough fund request for the Southern Africa Project in 1980
after only a half-year as president. As a member of the trustees’ board, he fol-
lowed closely the work of the Project, and he would acknowledge, in an
interview, that “the Project’s director wouldn’t have been able to function . . .
without the Foundation.”13 But, it was not only the Project that intrigued or
concerned him. Rather, it was the entire South African apartheid issue that
had occupied his attention for at least two years prior to taking on the lead-
ership role at the foundation. Even if he was necessarily involved with human
rights issues in various parts of the world, this area became a priority concern.
And, when it was finally resolved—and peacefully—with an open and free
election that brought Nelson Mandela to the presidency of South Africa,
Thomas would feel free to retire from the foundation. In essence, a primary
goal he had set for himself in 1979 had been accomplished.
Preoccupation by Thomas with the South African problem in its totality
had become publicly evident when the monumental work, South Africa:
Time Running Out, t was published by the University of California Press in
May 1981.14 This work, which almost immediately exerted an extraordinary
public impact, was prepared under the direction of an eleven-member com-
mission of which Thomas was chairman. Not surprisingly, the body came to
be popularly known as the “Thomas Commission.”15
Actually, the moving force in creating the commission was not the Ford
Foundation, but rather the Rockefeller Foundation. As early as November
1976, the officers of the International Relations Division of the latter foun-
dation began exploring the possibility of “a major new initiative” focused
on southern Africa.16 The November date seemed most appropriate. Jimmy
Carter had just been elected president of the United States and had commit-
ted himself to a policy of advancing human rights. If the already burning and
tormenting issue of apartheid required addressing by the international com-
munity, it would appear reasonable and logical that a Carter administration
might undertake the task. In June 1977, a half-year later, the Rockefeller
Foundation appropriated $250,000 for the purpose of establishing a com-
mission to oversee the planned study. At this point, two months later, in
August 1977, Thomas was asked to conduct a feasibility study of the pro-
posal.17 By then, Thomas had acquired the reputation, from his Bedford-
Stuyvesant days, for being at home in involving top-level industrialists as well
as academics in developmental projects. That he could perform easily in this
kind of environment was clear. His election to the Board of Trustees of
the Ford Foundation, at the very same time, was indicative of his skills and
connections.
Nor was Thomas a novice in knowledge about South Africa. He had vis-
ited the country in 1976 for the first time. He acknowledged later that dur-
ing that visit, he “was struck first by the enormity of its [South Africa]
problems” as well as “by the vast potential of the people, black and white.”18
In the remarks covering his earlier recollection about the visit to South
Africa, he meticulously avoided any angry comments about apartheid. Instead,
he focused upon how apartheid had limited the potentialities of develop-
ment for both races in South Africa. At the same time, he and the other new
commissioners came to the study “with a firm conviction that apartheid was
wrong.” The term was not intended to suggest a judgment based primarily
on moral overtones. Clearly, he was determined to avoid appearing as a rad-
ical or revolutionary. His only emphasis was upon the need for “change.” He
remembered that during the visit to South Africa, he had “felt that if a
chance arose to make even a small contribution to change in South Africa,
[he] would take that opportunity.” The invitation from the Rockefeller
Foundation had been quickly accepted.
The ten other members of the commission were extremely influential in
industrial, academic, and foundation circles. From the business world came
C. Peter McColough, chairman of the board at Xerox Corporation, and J.
Irwin Miller, chairman of the executive committee of Cummins Engine
Company. Also named was Howard D. Samuel, president of the Industrial
Union Department of the AFL-CIO. Among the academics were Alexander
Heard, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University (who was also chairman of the
Board of Trustees of the Ford Foundation), Robert C. Good, president of
Dennison University; Professor Charles V. Hamilton of Columbia University’s
Government Department; and Professor Ruth Simms Hamilton, of the
Sociology Department of Michigan State University. Included from the foun-
dation world were Alan Pifer, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New
York, and Constance Hilliard, the director of the Booker T. Washington
Foundation. An urban affairs consultant, Aileen C. Hernandez, was the
tenth member of the commission.19
The “advisers” to the commission were no less influential. One came from
the banking industry—G. A. Constaza, vice-chairman of Citibank; a second
was from the corporate world—William S. Sneath, chairman and chief exec-
utive officer of Union Carbide. The third was Professor Donald F. McHenry,
from the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University. Associated
with the prestigious assemblage of commission members and advisers were
no less than seventy-five consultants, fourteen staff members, and a host of
expert witnesses. Numerous commissioned papers were prepared by special-
ists.20 Buttressing the skilled researchers and writers were an accumulation of
testimonies and firsthand observations acquired by the commission during
two overseas trips. That the undertaking was monumental is self-evident,
with the cost running to over $2.6 million.21 The cost of few research proj-
ects in the social sciences come even close to this huge sum.
The objective of the commission was “to increase public understanding
of the evolving situation in South Africa, with specific reference to South
A Historic Role 191
Africans.”22 But significantly more was expected from the commission’s study,
analysis, and specific proposals. As described by Thomas himself, the purpose
was not mere “public understanding,” but rather to shape American foreign
policy toward South Africa. He expressly noted that the study was designed
to create “a morally defensible coherent and sustained U.S. policy towards
South Africa.”23 This was stated in mid-1978. It was made more explicit by
Thomas in an article five years later as follows:
Our assignment was to determine how the United States could respond to the
problems posed by South Africa and its dismaying system of racial separation
and discrimination.24
The acting president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Sterling Wortman, in

announcing the formation of the commission on August 15, 1979, linked
the two goals together in the following single statement:
to conduct a comprehensive examination and appraisal of the policy options

available for dealing with the issues confronting the U.S. in South Africa.25
The bulk of the published volume, sixteen of nineteen chapters, or more than
80 percent of the text, was devoted to the substantive examination of the
apartheid system and of the society in which it operated. A detailed evalu-
ation of the study by a specialist, Pauline Baker, considered it to be “prob-
ably the most comprehensive examination of South Africa in print.”26
Illuminating the scholarly analysis prepared by specialists were extremely
valuable sketched portraits of twenty individual South African types. Insights
ineluctably flowed from the characterizations showing how the various types
of inhabitants were affected by the dynamics of the apartheid system. The
portraits and the text were richly augmented by a detailed host of maps and
tables containing almost all the basic data a student would need. By the time
Baker prepared her evaluation—in 1985—the volume, she reported, “has
become a standard reference work” in the opinion of her sources.27
What was particularly impressive in the commission’s study, according to
Baker, was its critiques of three major “myths” that all too often had shaped
decision-making in foreign policy circles, especially among political conserva-
tives. A frequent argument advanced in these circles was that South Africa
was a bulwark against communism, and, therefore, to advance policies against
apartheid would play into the hands of the Soviet Union. The commission
demonstrated that this argument was questionable and, indeed, without
much validity. A second invalid myth had contended that unless the apartheid
regime was supported, the United States could be deprived of access to
essential strategic minerals. A third myth was also oriented toward security
considerations. It held that South Africa was upholding the interests of the
United States and the West by protecting the sea lanes around the Cape of
Good Hope. Baker noted that the commission report constituted “a credible
refutation . . . [of] these outward arguments.”28
Still, even while exploding the several myths that had acted as a restraint
upon U.S. policy toward South Africa, the proposals advanced by the Thomas
Commission were remarkably moderate. A sweeping arms embargo was
rejected in favor of a tightening of certain gray areas as well as a mild reduc-
tion in nuclear cooperation.29 More significant were the conclusions reached
in the area of investments by or in U.S. corporations doing business in South
Africa. If the more militant opponents of apartheid strongly backed disin-
vestment, the commission rejected such a course. And, of course, the com-
mission could hardly accept a campaign then beginning on college campuses
for disinvestment of holdings in corporations engaged in South African
industrial or commercial activities. (This had been initially advanced for deal-
ing with military dictatorships in Latin America.)
Instead, the commission study recommended that each U.S. company
engaged in business in South Africa be judged on a case-by-case basis, with
the understanding that no new investment be taken. But even this modest
action was to be done on a voluntary basis by individual corporations that
chose to do so. Such a cautious and hesitant approach would obviously be
more acceptable to the prominent corporate heads who sat on the commis-
sion and who had close ties with the U.S. corporate community in general.
In an interview more than two decades after the commission study was
published, Thomas explained that account had to be taken of two realities:
First, the commission was dealing with “the rulers of South Africa,” and it was
seeking “to change their behavior with respect to the black majority in the
country. Secondly, we wanted to avoid ‘further damaging the life-sustaining
need of the population.’”30 The considerations required a rejection of more
radical methods of affecting Pretoria’s policy-makers. The “damage” to the
public’s needs would ineluctably follow, thought Thomas, were a policy of
“isolation” of South Africa to be followed by withdrawal of investments and
other forms of economic activity. Besides, Thomas thought, isolation rein-
forced by a hostile investment policy would “drive the South Africans into
the embrace of the Communist [or] whoever, you name it, whoever the
enemy was out there.”
While the commission—and Thomas—opted for a voluntary program
geared toward making no new investments but maintaining old investments
with the view to “engage” the apartheid regime and possibly influence it
toward change, Thomas himself told an interviewer that he also had looked
sympathetically upon a compromise or a “middle” path program between
isolation and engagement. He was referring here to the so-called “Sullivan
Principles” advocated by the Reverend Leon Sullivan of Philadelphia. As
interpreted by Thomas, the argument for the principles was: “Let’s make
those businesses [already operating in South Africa] model examples, of
openness, of opportunity, of advancement of social justice for their employ-
ees and their families, so that within this very structure of apartheid, you
would have these very desirable economic entities as social forces inside the
country in furtherance [of the] human rights agenda.”
A Historic Role 193
How much Thomas sympathized with this position was not made clear in
the interview. Certainly, he was more disposed to embrace it as an alternative
to the isolation option. In his view, the “middle path” constituted “a partic-
ular form of engagement” that might prove helpful. A striking feature of
Thomas’ recollection of the intense debates of the early eighties was that they
“made that period both difficult and also frankly so interesting and challeng-
ing.” He even rejected any thought of placing the isolationist policy beyond
the pale. Indeed, and most significantly, in the interview he expressed full
awareness that Gay McDougall, appointed as the new director of the
Southern Africa Project in 1980, had “joined the isolationist part of the anti-
apartheid movement.”31 Her militancy, obviously backed by officials of the
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, would lead her to support
embargoes against South Africa as well as disinvestment. Yet, her group
remained a favorite instrument of Thomas and the foundation; few other
NGOs received the kind of financial support and funding from the founda-
tion as did the Project.
That the Thomas Commission study, especially the sizable substantive sec-
tions, would receive strong support and approval in the community of busi-
ness leaders was evident. This section—eighty percent of the book—was
called by Baker “especially comprehensive.”32 Baker also found that a “sub-
stantial consensus” had emerged “about the uniformly high quality accu-
racy and balanced analysis” in Time Running Out. Her evaluations, which
came four years after the book appeared, concluded that “it had stood the
test of time in its dissection of the fundamental structure, processes and
human impact of apartheid.” Apparently, the endorsement of the substantive
sections came from virtually all interested parties—scholars, journalists,
activists, government officials, and businessmen.
In sharp contrast, the policy recommendations of the Study Commission
in the book’s final three chapters were found to be unclear, controversial, and
less than adequate. The important journal, Foreign Affairs,s held that this sec-
tion of the book was “less sharply defined” and that its “significant insights”
were muffled.33 In various quarters of the American community, especially
among those committed to the anti-apartheid struggle, disappointment reigned.
Equally critical were voices from conservative circles. A letter to Thomas
from the director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation con-
cluded that the commission had “apparently decided to take a somewhat
narrow perspective of the topic.”34
On the other hand, observers could not fail to notice the composition of
the commission and its primary sponsor—the Rockefeller Foundation. The
reviewer in The New York Times Book Review (August 2, 1981), Anthony
Sampson, for example, commented that “this hefty volume is less interest-
ing for what it says than for what it represents.” The very prestigious char-
acter of the commission, especially the elite personages from the business
world, made the commission’s analysis and recommendation “little short of
sensational.”35 Thus, even the modest and quite limited proposals for con-
tending with apartheid carried significance given “this kind of backing and
membership.” The more professedly liberal journal, The New York Review of
Books,s in a review written by Conor Cruise O’Brien, expressed a sympathetic
reaction to an “establishment” group that “advocates specific limited pressure
on South Africa to move toward reform”36 (November 5, 1981). O’Brien,
properly, dubbed the commission study an “establishment liberal document.”
When the Thomas Commission began its deliberations during the latter
part of the Carter presidency, it probably had not expected that Carter would
be replaced by a Republican administration under Ronald Reagan. The polit-
ical irony was that the document apparently could not be completed before
President Carter left the White House. The commission’s recommendations
were hardly appropriate for a very conservative administration, like Reagan’s.
Thus, it was not surprising that liberal institutions might welcome the rec-
ommendations, even if not enthusiastically, while ideologically conserva-
tive organizations, like the Heritage Foundation, found them irrelevant and
inadequate.
In a real sense, then, the commission had failed in its principal purpose of
directly influencing U.S. policy toward South Africa. According to Baker, the
failure was due to an unfortunate political miscalculation: the commission’s
recommendations were “premised on the re-election of President Carter.” A
Reagan administration could hardly be expected to favor a policy oriented
to political and economic reform in a foreign country. Instead, even the very
modest proposal of no new investments would be seen as objectionable. The
Reagan policy of “constructive engagement” did not seek any basic reform
in apartheid society, and certainly rejected trade pressures even in the area of
nuclear material.
In one area, there was a certain harmony between the commission study
and what the Reagan administration would later practice. The commission
had recommended “an increase in educational opportunities available to black
South Africans.”37 The Ford Foundation, itself, had placed greatt emphasis
upon this theme. It was seen as a critical element for the strengthening of
black leadership programs, an objective to which the apartheid philosophy
had devoted the most limited attention. One U.S. government agency did
annually bring two hundred South African blacks to the United States for
professional career training in a number of fields. If the commission sought
“more financial support” for the proposal, little change in government pol-
icy in this area took place until 1984, when the U.S. Agency for International
Development began providing ten million dollars annually for external schol-
arships for black South Africans to study in the U.S.38
But if Time Running Out did not directly influence government policy, it
played an extraordinary role in educating the public about apartheid and the
various options for the United States to deal with it.39 That the Rockefeller
Foundation and the Thomas Commission were determined to make the vari-
ous sectors of the public fully aware of its findings was self-evident. The study
was widely distributed to government officials, the U.S. and foreign press,
domestic groups concerned with the issue, scholars and members of the
A Historic Role 195
diplomatic corps, leaders of the black community in the United States, and
institutions and individuals specially concerned with the South African region.
The volume was reviewed in scores of scholarly and popular publications.
An estimated two hundred newspapers, according to Baker, featured the
book whether in articles, magazine pieces, editorial comment, or book reviews.
The other media was hardly neglected. Commission members and staff
members made personal appearances on TV and radio programs. And brief-
ings were provided by them to executive branch officials, congressional
representatives, journalists, and businessmen. They also made themselves
available for seminars or meetings with various foreign affairs organizations.
Particularly important was the determination to carry the commission’s mes-
sage to the business world, and especially to its highest and elite officialdom.
Copies of the study were sent to the CEOs of the 350 companies that had
operations in South Africa as well as the CEOs of the Fortune 500 compa-
nies. The more militant Gay McDougall, who had taken over the Southern
Africa Project just prior to the publication of the commission study, later
recognized that it had exerted “a significant impact.”40
What McDougall found especially impressive was the fact that “it wound
up on the shelf of nearly every corporate CEO, even though they only read
the title.” She considered the volume with its recommendations “really very
important” in that they generated a peer-to-peer interaction among top
corporation executives. For that reason, she believed that even if the study
emphasized “voluntary” initiatives instead of tough-minded actions, it, non-
etheless, was “a significant step forward in the disinvestment campaign.”
Presumably, initial modest, voluntary acts would enable corporations to later
take on or support stronger measures.
The interview with Gay McDougall brought out the intriguing point that
at an early stage of the planning of the study under Thomas’s direction, she
had been “asked . . . to be on the staff.”41 She declined the invitation because
she doubted that its conclusions would be “consistent enough with [her]
own.” At the time, she reported that earlier when she had studied at the
London School of Economics, she had been heavily involved with the mili-
tant national liberation movement of Africa. The Study Commission was
seen by her as an “activity that had as its audience corporate America,” and,
at the time, she sought a job that would place her “more directly in contact
with the people in Southern Africa.” Given the perceived differences in out-
look, McDougall considered that she would be “uncomfortable” in taking a
position on the commission’s staff. From a later perspective, she acknowl-
edged that the contribution of the commission turned out to be “far, far
more significant to the overall effort than I could see at that point.” If she
would come to regard the commission’s work as “very important,” she still
“wasn’t sure that [was] where [she] wanted to place [herself].”
McDougall also disclosed that, even though she had refused a staff posi-
tion with the commission, she nonetheless “was invited to the various meet-
ings [of the commission] that took place over the years in various places.”
Meetings of the group continued after the study came out, and she remained
active in them.42 In this way, she frequently had contact with Thomas, but
apparently that contact had very little to do with her work on the Southern
Africa Project.43 Rather, her discussions concerning the Project and her rela-
tions with the Ford Foundation were always with William Carmichael of the
top foundation staff.
If the commission volume was unsuccessful in influencing government
policy during the Reagan administration, it nonetheless significantly achieved
its goals in general public education. The Baker evaluation in 1985 noted
that Time Running Out “[was] still widely used by schools, corporations,
public interest groups, the media and government officials as an authoritative
reference.”44 In public education, the study was regarded as a basic source.
Baker found that “it is used in many college courses across the country.”45 At
the secondary school level, the volume was perceived by the Ford Foundation
as a critical tool. A broad effort of distribution of the study “was embarked
upon,” noted Baker, with the assistance of the Ford Foundation.” Specially
prepared publications drawing upon the commission’s study were distributed
to no less than eighteen thousand schools across the United States.
But as earlier indicated, a special target for the commission was the busi-
ness community. Baker’s evaluation indicated “that the report has been widely
circulated and digested, especially among firms with a high profile presence in
South Africa.”46 This was emphasized by Gay McDougall. Indeed, it was
seen by one executive as a “marvelous training tool” in those industries
where there were executive training sessions that took account of social issues
and programs. Strikingly, a 1983 survey by the Investor Responsibility
Research Center that was based upon responses to a questionnaire found
that “many of the respondents made reference to the recommendations of
Time Running Out.”47
And while the federal government had little use for the study, it became “a
basic education resource in Congress,” where staffers to senators and con-
gressmen used the volume for quick reference.48 However, no national leg-
islative proposals drew upon it, as public pressure was not exercised in this
direction at the time. At lower levels of government, whether in state or
urban legislative bodies, the interest in sanctions was already beginning in the
early eighties, stirred by lobbying on college campuses. Already in two key
city councils, Washington, DC, and New York, the commission report
became a critical element in the local legislative debates.49
To the extent that Time Running Out exerted a major impact upon pub-
lic education in a variety of areas, it ineluctably added to the stature and
authority of the Study Commission’s chairman, Franklin Thomas. This, there-
fore, impacted the Ford Foundation, which selected him as its president. It
was hardly surprising that the Ford Foundation, some years after Time
Running Out was published by the University of California Press, would
undertake to publish a series of additional volumes updating the initial study.
Indeed, Baker’s evaluation recorded that all the persons she interviewed,
A Historic Role 197
representing a broad variety of sources, agreed “that there should be an

update of the analytical sections of the Thomas Commission Report to insure
that it remains a valuable educational and reference document.50
Five volumes would follow, all published by the Ford Foundation. In each
case, the Foreign Policy Association was identified as a co-publisher, but the
Ford Foundation held the copyright. The volumes were formally referred to
as the South Africa UPDATE Series.51 Perhaps not surprisingly, the first vol-
ume of the series, published in 1989, was written by Pauline Baker, who had
done the evaluation for the Rockefeller Foundation in 1985. But no longer
was the Rockefeller Foundation involved. The enormously important educa-
tional works had been totally transformed into a Ford Foundation func-
tion of which Franklin Thomas took great personal pride. As is evident, he
saw in education a critical means for bringing about major social and polit-
ical change. The five-volume series, he emphasized in an interview, set
forth the nature of the issues involved as well as the special interests of the
United States.52
But it was not only written works and the media and journal coverage that
added to a broad understanding in the United States of the apartheid issue.
Especially important, Thomas thought, was the role of television and,
notably, CNN in guiding the U.S. public to learn about the South African
scene and then to act upon this understanding. In his view, “the develop-
ment of CNN play[ed] a critically important role in getting broad coverage
to cases of abuse and . . . oppression.”53 He went on to explain that “it’s the
picture . . . the visual image of what’s happening; it’s almost like an acceler-
ant to the movement—this is a personal view.”
Less oriented to education as a means of bringing public attention to the
effects of apartheid was Gay McDougall, who had become, in 1980, director
of the Southern Africa Project. It marked a major step in the development of
the Project. Her academic and professional background was unusual in com-
bining high-level legal training in the United States and England with real
human rights experiences in New York. She had received a doctorate in juris-
prudence from Yale University and a master’s degree in international law at
the London School of Economics. Prior to joining the Project, she had
served as counsel to the deputy mayor for criminal justice of New York
City.54 All previous directors of the Project would serve but one or two years.
This young, dynamic, and articulate black woman would serve for the next
fifteen years, and would play a most significant external role in facilitating the
historic collapse of apartheid in South Africa.
McDougall’s virtual independence in running the operation of the
Southern Africa Project was recalled later with a certain panache and pride.
In the interview, McDougall reported, “I’m not sure I paid a lot of attention
to the Ford Foundation.”55 She even expressed some amusement abut this.
At the same time, she emphasized that her “interface [with the foundation]
was Bill Carmichael who was supremely supportive,” adding that “the money
[from the foundation] kept coming.”56 No other individual in the foundation,
including Thomas, was mentioned by her. Nor did she remember being
given advice or instructions by the foundation. Any such interference “never
happened,” she said, noting that “absolutely” she had felt a total independ-
ence.57 This applied to Carmichael’s role as well. Never was there any “hint”
from him as to what “[she] should be doing.” On the contrary, he gave her
“a sense of being supportive,” and she recalled that their “relationship was
always very easy, very friendly.”
Significantly, as McDougall recalled, it was Carmichael who first indicated
to her that a job with the Project was available and that they had had “a
conversation” about it.58 Carmichael, of course, did not hire her; that, she
noted, was done by the executive director of the Lawyers Committee on
Civil Rights under Law. Still, it was quite likely that Carmichael had inter-
vened with the executive director of the Lawyers Committee. How McDougall
first met Carmichael was not specified in any detail. She had initially gone to
him to “get a grant to do something.” And, she recalled that he had “given
[her] a $1,000 or something to go to some international law conference in
Geneva, something like that.” This occurred before 1980, the year she
was hired.
McDougall recognized that her background was quite different than the
backgrounds of her predecessors as director of the Southern Africa Project.
Those who ran it before her were primarily lawyers, mostly civil rights lawyers,
but they had, as she noted, “no background . . . in international affairs, in
Southern Africa, in human rights issues.” Basically, they were young admin-
istrators, mainly black, but with not much familiarity with either interna-
tional or human rights concerns. Still, the Project made significant strides
in the tasks it undertook to provide legal defense for apprehended militants in
South Africa, and to sensitize the American legal community to the nature of
apartheid as it impacted blacks.
In great contrast, McDougall came to the project with “a totally different
background.” For quite a few years, she had been involved with and “work-
ing with liberation movement personalities in London.” And, there, she was
provided with a rich background “in international human rights, in particu-
lar, the issues that were arising in Southern Africa.”59 Thus, she displayed
certain basic skills that would prove to be invaluable as the crisis deepened in
that area, with its inevitable impact upon various interest groups in the
United States. No wonder, then, that McDougall would be sought out by
Carmichael and would be given a veritable carte blanche in her Project lead-
ership. Once she took over, there were no longer comments that founda-
tion grants would be seriously reduced in future allocations. On the contrary,
grants would remain high, even as sizable additional funds were forthcoming
from other foundations.
What enabled McDougall to effectively function in the open was the
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law. This group formally a requested
grants for the Project on southern Africa. But it was significantly more than
a grant-receiving agency from the Ford Foundation. Since the Project and
A Historic Role 199
its new director undertook highly politicized tasks and utilized methods that
were hardly conventional in character, they were in need of a respectable
cover. McDougall would quickly recognize, upon assuming her position, she
recalled, that the Lawyers Committee provided “the mantle of establish-
ment . . . respectability.”60 They “were white, established lawyers . . . heads of
or senior partners of law firms.” And, she acknowledged, “one of the things
I quickly learned to do was to trot them out every time cover was needed.”61
The comment was accompanied by an amused laugh. But she was quick to
emphasize that the “device” of respectability was designed less for the Ford
Foundation than it was for impacting “on the South Africa government.”
The Lawyers Committee was hardly the big organization that some may
have conceived it to be, to judge from the numerous variegated activities of
the Project under McDougall’s direction. In fact, the committee’s size was
unusually small—only 162 persons, as she remembered it.62 She recalled that
the committee had been largely a domestic organization, and was suddenly
transformed into a group with concerns about South Africa by sheer acci-
dent, flowing from a personal relationship. Someone on the staff of the
Committee “had a personal connection with the [left-wing] Joel Carlson.”
While defending those accused of terrorism in South Africa, Carlson wrote
to his friend, “I’m down here, can you give me some help.”
Cover was needed because “most of the work [in which she was engaged]
was actually channeling funds into South Africa to defend [those charged with
terrorism].” Thus, McDougall acknowledged that her work was “somewhat
surreptitious,” even though the Project was supposed to act within South
Africa’s legal structure.63 McDougall indicated that getting funds into the
country required an infrastructure that she chose not to describe in any
detail. Before she arrived on the scene, only one person was involved in the
“infrastructure.” She “then broadened” it by tapping into other sources like
the UN Trust Fund. The total would become, she said, “really substantial.”
The job of getting the money into South Africa so that lawyers could be
hired and paid, or getting it out in special cases, was complicated. She had to
use circuitous methods.” In “many instances,” it was as “simple as wiring it
in”; but “sometimes it was sent through other people or to neutral places.”64
Aside from money transfers, she was also burdened with obtaining and get-
ting information out of South Africa at a time when the apartheid regime
declared “a state of emergency.” In the mid-eighties, for example, she
recalled, “she had to communicate back and forth [with her legal contacts in
South Africa] and got instantly out . . . names of people [who were
detained].” At the time, the fax machine was only in its beginning stage and
very few companies had it. But McDougall “had a contact in South Africa
who ran a company” that had access to the fax technology. So she “was able
to produce a list of people who were in detention, and [they] had it read into
the Congressional Record.”65
McDougall saw her immediate task as the development of solid methods
for getting new sources of funds into South Africa and getting information
out for the purpose of disclosure in Washington. To pursue these initia-

tives, she actively cultivated prominent members of significant law firms in
Washington and across the country and sought to have them become directly
involved.66 And if assisting in actual legal defense was not appropriate
enough for these “types” to do, she “at one point had them marching out-
side the South African Embassy” in Washington or “using their names as
prestige and cover for pressure on the South African government.” It was
obviously a multilayered task that she relished doing.
McDougall had also to deal with the very limited number of black South
African lawyers. According to her recollection, when she took on the job,
“there weren’t 10 black lawyers in the whole country who were defending
[against] political pressures.” One of them was “brutally assassinated” some
six months after her arrival. She recalled that she had “to find ways to get a
broader array of lawyers involved in these [detention] cases.”67 Prevailing
upon some white lawyers in South Africa for assistance was also crucial, and
it was obviously undertaken in a major way, but McDougall did not explain
how this was done.
When asked about other human rights organizations that might have pro-
vided the project with assistance, McDougall noted that “it was very lonely”
for her in the United States where she worked. Until the middle or late
1980s, she said, “there were no outside organizations involved.” Referring
to Amnesty International, she explained that as black South Africans actively
began to fight back after a state of emergency was proclaimed, the very
nature of Amnesty’s policy precluded involvement. She commented that “as
soon as the situation was such where people were actually charged with
things like terrorism, Amnesty wouldn’t adopt them.”68 The flat comment
carried a caustic resonance.
Gay McDougall’s appointment came at a transitional moment in South
African history. As predicted from the sixties onwards, and especially after
June 1976, the hardening of apartheid policies was certain to evoke and
energize a militant black response that, in turn, would unleash evermore
forceful measures of repression. The Southern Africa Project could expect to
assume greater responsibilities and, indeed, political trials increased. In the
foundation’s next grant to the Project on July 1, 1982, its introductory note
captured the external reality in the following way: “the past two years have
been turbulent in South Africa.” On the one hand, “black opposition to gov-
ernment policies . . . has mushroomed,” with virtually every community
institution affected—churches, schools, trade unions, media, and organiza-
tions. The apartheid regime, on the other hand, responded with even greater
“large-scale abridgements of human rights.” Hundreds were detained with-
out trial. Newspapers were shut down and journalists were “banned.” The
number of political trials “escalated.” According to the foundation, “the tes-
timony of defendants and witnesses to these trials suggests that torture is a
commonplace feature of political detention.”69
The nature and depth of the repression required continued and strong
foundation support for the Southern Africa Project. Impressively, the Project
A Historic Role 201
was now drawing more and more financial support from church groups
like the Episcopal Church of the United States, the World Council of
Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and the Netherlands Inter-Church
Coordination Committee. Of special importance were contributions from
the governments of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The diversification
of the fund-raising sources for the Project permitted the foundation to
reduce the scale of its funding by ten thousand dollars for the next two-year
period. But it would remain the principal source of funding for the Project’s
core operating budget.70
That the work of the Project could be expected to expand during the
McDougall administration was almost a certainty. In July 1982, a new and
comprehensive Internal Security Act was enacted that continued and codi-
fied the restrictive powers of the regime in responding to the growing dissent
of the black community. Particularly brutal was the new act’s acceptance of
detention for an unlimited period of time. And such a decision might be
made by a government official whose orders would not be subject to court
review. The ruthlessly repressive act of “banning,” initiated several years ear-
lier, was also renewed. The new comprehensive law did incorporate, as a sop
to bitter international complaints, certain concessions to liberal demands. It
provided that persons detained for interrogation might be visited in private
by a magistrate and a local medical doctor every two weeks. Earlier repressive
acts carried no such humane consideration. Still, the foundation noted that
case studies of several recent deaths that occurred while the victims were in
detention suggested that these liberalizing measures were “inadequate” to
prevent police abuse.71
The foundation grant to the Project in 1984 would increase by three
times the grant of 1982. A total of $210,340 was allocated for a two-year
period. It was to cover the operation of the Project in its legal defense work
and in affecting opinion in the United States concerning apartheid. The legal
defense work of the Project had already been extended to include torture and
wrongful death in the case of major instances of detention when the prisoner
died. Particularly noteworthy was the Muofhe case. An inquest into his death
resulted in a suit by his family, charging security police officers with murder.
Given the most unusual aspects of the resulting murder trial, the Project sent
an outside legal observer to attend the proceedings. After the court acquitted
the government defendants, the Project observer wrote, “in the light of the
evidence, one must conclude that the judgment was incredible.” In his com-
ments, he said that the court, despite “overwhelming pathological evidence,”
offered “not a word of reproach or caution” against the security police.72
Neither the Project nor the family of Muofhe would quit in their search
for justice. When the family brought a civil suit against the authorities, it
resulted in an out-of-court settlement of about $140,000. The outcome was
remarkable: the settlement was “the largest known payment to the family of
a detainee who died in police custody.”
Focusing on the legal aspects of local and specific cases was not the Project’s
only concern. Under McDougall, it also sought, in a major way, to focus
world attention on human rights abuses in South Africa. In September 1983,

the Project published a comprehensive study entitled Deaths in Detention
and South Africa’s Security Laws. It was distributed widely to UN bodies, to
members of Congress, to the media, and, of course, to lawyers and human
rights activists. McDougall, herself, testified in May 1984 before a UN body.
She drew upon the study in a report to the Ad Hoc Working Group of
Experts on Southern Africa, then meeting in London. The Working Group
was created by the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Besides its traditional defense work, the Project moved into new areas of
concern: the apartheid regime had been engaged in efforts to bring about
the “forced removal” of black villagers from various areas in which they
lived.73 Initiatives were undertaken by the Project to prevent this removal.
Sometimes it would achieve success after provoking “a widespread interna-
tional outcry.” To deal with the forced removal problem, the Project had cre-
ated, during the previous two years, “an impressive network of church,
community and legal service organizations” to help local communities from
being removed. Other foundation-funded groups, like Black Sash and the
Legal Resources Center of the University of Witwatersrand, would provide
advice to local attorneys involved in the defense of local communities
faced by the threat of removal.
The Black Sash organization merits special attention. It was a women’s
paralegal service and public education association that had “developed an
effective network of technical assistance . . . [programs for] black communi-
ties” threatened by forced removal.74 Significant grants from the Ford
Foundation provided the group twenty-five thousand dollars in February
1982 and one hundred thousand dollars covering two years beginning in
October 1983. Meanwhile, the Legal Resources Center was also granted
funds to research and study the labor-law field and enhance the freedom of
expression program at the university. Fairly large sums were allocated to this
group: twenty-five thousand dollars for two years beginning August 1980,
and two hundred fifty thousand dollars for a little more than two years start-
ing in October 1982.
These sums, together with the greatly increased grant to the Southern
Africa Project, demonstrated the new extraordinary commitment of the Ford
Foundation under Franklin Thomas’ leadership to creating change in South
Africa.75 It implied that the increasingly large-scale grant program was based
on the assumption that significant change was feasible. The grant document
of 1984 offered little in the way of doubt or caution about the future. A
reflection of the foundation’s willingness to allocate huge sums to the
Project, too, reflected the new orientation. The Project was itself willing to
draw ever-larger sums from the United Nations Trust Fund for South Africa:
over one and a half million dollars had been taken since 1974 to assist “the
defense of individuals charged with political offenses.”
The 1984 foundation grant of over two hundred thousand dollars to the
Project set a record for foundation grants to the McDougall group and
A Historic Role 203
reflected the foundation’s strong support of her operation. The grant spoke
of the foundation’s “recognition of both the quality and growing quantity of
the Project’s activities.”76 The effectiveness of the Project’s work, noted the
foundation, could be found in the reality that it “successfully generated sub-
stantially more opportunities for productive contributions than two people
[could] handle” (reference here was to McDougall and her assistant, Micaela
Missimind). A second attorney was now needed as per the request of
McDougall, and the foundation was most willing to respond favorably.
An increase in the budget of the Southern Africa Project could not have
been more welcome. The year 1986 was to mark a major, if not decisive,
turning point in the long-term struggle against apartheid. That turning
point involved an extraordinary confrontation in South Africa, and another
extraordinary confrontation of a different sort in the United States between
Congress and the president. The date June 16, 1986, was seen as a crucial
day, for it marked the tenth anniversary of the Soweto uprising that had
provided a critical spark to black consciousness that would never again be
snuffed out. Four days before the anniversary, the apartheid government,
expecting large-scale demonstrations, chose to prevent these anticipated
demonstrations by declaring a national “state of emergency.”77 Under its
provisions, South Africa’s security forces would be enabled to arrest anyone
without charges, to search and seize property, to impose curfews, and to
seal off areas, using whatever force was deemed necessary. Thousands were
arrested during the following days, and some offices of religious groups,
political organizations, labor unions, and the press were raided and sealed
off. Unprecedented press censorship was imposed, with security forces seiz-
ing copies of independent newspapers and raiding their offices.
While the total number of detentions remained unknown, in August,
the government released a list of over nine thousand detainees that climbed
another four thousand by February 1987. Independent monitors set the
detention figures at twenty-five thousand. The Project estimated that over
five thousand persons were detained, but not under this security legislation.
Among those detained, the Project stated in its Annual Report, t were leaders
of the more than six hundred community, labor, and student movement
groups—all affiliated with the liberal United Democratic Front. By mid-
October, some three hundred organizations affiliated with the United
Democratic Front were banned. At the beginning of 1987, the entire national
executive of the United Democratic Front was either in detention, on trial, or
banned from political activity. The scale of the repression was obviously
designed to intimidate everyone associated with the anti-apartheid move-
ment. Entire communities were terrorized. Fear and insecurity in the black
townships prevailed. Blacks were prevented from gathering in churches or in
any other place that could serve as a venue for demonstrations.
Repression was accompanied by certain rather significant reforms. The hated
pass and influx control laws that had prevailed for over sixty years were
repealed. At the same time, security officials and vigilantes were encouraged
by the regime to engage in the forced removal of black inhabitants from

various areas, resulting in massive homelessness. Brutalities included killings,
the torching of shacks, and the use of fire bombs. The angry response of the
black Africans took the form of a general strike that brought about an eerie
silence in the major urban areas.
The Project, in 1986, became heavily preoccupied with extensive responses
to the government repression. It financed the defense of over nine hundred
detainees, including hundreds of children, and it filed applications for the
release of nearly one thousand persons who were detained without trial or
charges. With the crackdown leaving little area for maneuver, only the courts
provided loopholes. Test cases were brought before the courts, with particu-
lar attention focused upon trade unions embracing the independent unions
from the mining, metal, and food industries. The various unions’ efforts to
organize a consumer boycott, in the meantime, were held to be violations
of the emergency regulations.
But in the black townships, a rent boycott that was rapidly moving
forward and embraced 54 percent of residences in Soweto, the areas around
Johannesburg, and the eastern part of the Cape of Good Hope. When the
authorities challenged the boycott with evictions and various forms of intim-
idation, the Southern Africa Project responded with suits challenging local
housing administrators.78 And when the evicted were hurt or killed by the
security police, the Project vigorously took up their cases. Consumer boy-
cotts in urban areas were particularly devastating, with a precipitous decline
in daily sales. To halt the spread of the boycott, the security agencies of the
regime sought to intimidate leaders of the boycott with arrests and beatings.
The Project would not be silenced and aided victims by bringing legal suits
before the courts. As the boycott drive spread to the “Homeland” provinces
of South Africa, and arrests followed, the Project still would not budge. It
continued to be the prime defender, its courtroom resistance mounting.
During 1986, at least 721 persons in 116 separate trials faced charges of
terrorism and subversion. In a number of the trials, the Project, wherever
possible, would provide the defense lawyers. Particularly valuable was the
work of the Project’s lawyers in disclosing how alleged “confessions” were
extracted after months of abuse by the police.79 Legal defense tactics focused
on exposing coercion at various levels of the detention prison, in a num-
ber of major cases. At times, defendants were acquitted or prosecutors
were restrained by injunction, or those detained for long stretches of time were
released. Especially outrageous were the trials of youngsters under the age of
twenty (three quarters were under twenty years old, and one half were under
eighteen in the trials of 1986). The Project lawyers were heavily involved in
their defense.
The Project’s legal team, during 1986, did not neglect the repression in
Namibia that, in violation of UN Security Council decisions, continued to be
administered by the South African government. The Project undertook a
crucial case of detention without trial and won the release of a sixteen-month
A Historic Role 205
detainee. It was an unprecedented decision.80 Of equal importance was the

Project’s defense in cases involving press freedom. Its lawyers, in one case,
submitted a memorandum on precedents in Canadian and in American law.
In another case, the Project obtained a strong decision by the judge that
the closing down of the leading newspaper violated press freedom. These
cases became the subject of testimony by Gay McDougall to the UN Fourth
Committee dealing with trusteeships.81
Within the United States, the Project was almost as active as it was in South
Africa. Here, the central political and legislative issue was the imposition of
sanctions on South Africa. By fall 1986, Congress was prepared to enact the
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, despite President Ronald Reagan’s vig-
orous opposition. The legislation was “the toughest and most far-reaching
sanctions legislation” introduced by any of South Africa’s trading partners.82
It would ban the following: all significant exports to South Africa; most
imports from South Africa, including the Krugerrand gold coins; landing
rights for South African Airways; and all U.S. government purchases of
South African goods and services. The measure provided for the president,
with congressional approval, to suspend or modify the various sanctions
should South Africa release Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners,
and repeal most of its egregious apartheid legislation.
The Project, under McDougall’s direction, helped in lobbying Congress
on the issue, as did other NGOs, most notably the American Committee on
Africa. If the legislation, in itself, directed a cataclysmic assault against
South Africa’s economy, it also included clauses that could compel South
Africa’s other trading partners to undertake similar enactments or run the
risk of jeopardizing their valuable marketing opportunities in the United States.
Congress provided U.S. citizens the “legal right” to seek damages against
any person who takes “commercial advantage of a sanction or prohibition.”
President Reagan vetoed the legislation that had been adopted in August
and September 1986, calling it a policy of “cut and run.” The House of
Representatives overrode the veto by an overwhelming 313 to eighty-three
vote, and the Senate followed shortly afterward with a seventy-eight to
twenty-one vote. It was the first time since 1973 (when Congress overrode
President Richard Nixon’s veto of a War Powers Resolution) that the White
House “had suffered such a heavy loss on an important foreign policy
issue.”83 Nelson Mandela, released in February 1991, ultimately recognized,
“there is no doubt” that “sanctions played a decisive role in the collapse of
apartheid.”84 Once applied by the United States, it was only a matter of a few
years before the entire structure of apartheid would come crashing down.
But the Project, creatively, went beyond mere support for the legislative
sanctions. It established a Sanctions Monitoring Group that would monitor
the implementation and enforcement of the act’s sanctions. Composition
of the new group would come from the Project’s staff and from voluntary
lawyers who worked for law firms and law school faculties with expertise in
international trade and customs. The Sanctions Group would consult with
relevant departments of the U.S. government and key administration agen-

cies. As part of its portfolio, the Sanctions Group discovered that South
African Airways was challenging the efforts of the U.S. Department of
Transportation to implement the new act. On the basis of the group’s initia-
tive, the Department of Transportation revoked the lauding rights of the
foreign air carrier on grounds that it was actively lobbying against U.S. legis-
lation, and when South African Airways sought to delay the revocation, the
Project quickly intervened with a lawsuit.
Imaginatively, the Project’s Monitoring Group found that the Reagan
administration sought to use a loophole in the law banning South African
uranium imports that would have permitted the importation of uranium ore
and uranium oxide. The Project responded by formally petitioning the key
government agency—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—to block any
type of uranium imports.85 On a totally separate issue, the Project filed an
amicus legal brief in a case involving a Baltimore city ordinance that required
that the city’s pension funds in no way be invested in South Africa, as had
been the case earlier. The brief argued that the city ordinance, which might
have earlier been considered an unconstitutional intrusion into the exclusive
federal authority to conduct foreign affairs, had now been preempted by the
Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. The range of the Project’s defense activities was
extraordinary and illuminates the unique and special honors bestowed later
upon Gay McDougall.
U.S. economic sanctions could not but exert a powerful impact on South
Africa. Only several years after they were enacted, the already isolated apart-
heid regime recognized that it had no political future. On February 2, 1990,
remarkably close in time to the collapse of the military regime in Chile and
the Communist satellite governments in Eastern Europe, the ruler in South
Africa, President F. W. de Klerk, announced a series of astonishing steps that
brought apartheid to an end. All the race restriction laws were abolished and
those arrested under them freed; the ban on the African National Congress
and all other political groups was removed; and the symbol of the anti-
apartheid struggle, Nelson Mandela who had been interred in 1962 was pro-
vided his freedom which came the following year in 1991.
What constituted a climactic moment for the Project and McDougall’s
career were the four days of April 26–29, 1994, when South Africa held
its first free elections. It was the historic moment that would mark “apartheid’s
funeral.”86 In January 1994, McDougall was appointed to South Africa’s
new sixteen-member Independent Electoral Commission; she was the only
American accorded this honor and responsibility. Voter education programs
had to be started from scratch. The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
under Law was active with a variety of civic groups, urging the holding of
workshops and the building of an administrative structure essential for the
election process.87 That the election process would have a positive outcome
was, by no means, certain. One of the Lawyers Committee representatives
commented, “People were afraid that there wouldn’t be an election—that it
A Historic Role 207
would be violently disrupted, that the turnout would be insignificant, that

there would be assassinations or civil war.” Instead, and despite widespread
anxieties and fears, the election turned out to be remarkably peaceful.
Patiently, people waited in long lines to vote, mostly in good humor. An
observer recalled one of the voters saying, “Hey, we’ve waited 32 years for
this. We can wait another couple hours.”
For McDougall, the election was more than an historic watershed.
“Through all the work I’ve done over the past twenty-three years, I never
imagined that this would happen at this time,” she said. But the unique
moment that she would especially remember was the one during which she
accompanied Nelson Mandela to the polls: “To be with him when he voted
for the first time in his life, after spending a lifetime fighting for this simple
right was very special.”
Chapter 10
Wo m e n’s R i g h ts :
“A Po s i t i o n o f E m p ow e r m e n t ”
A t a Ford Foundation staff discussion, in November 1978, of women’s

roles across various cultures, a foundation vice-president, Mitchell Sviridoff,
lauded women staffers for the quiet internal pressure they had used for two
years on behalf of gender rights. Hardly an active advocate of women’s
rights—he had been a specialist on labor and social services—Sviridoff was so
impressed with what had been internally accomplished that he told the staff
that he expected that women could achieve “a position of empowerment.”1
The extraordinary progress in the number of women staff members in the
course of several years convinced him that there was no limit as to what
levels would be reached. In the course of only thirteen years, 1973–86, the
number of professional women staffers doubled from 23 percent to 53
percent.2
It also marked the beginning of a major, almost revolutionary, shift in
foundation programming, running parallel to its giant human rights strides
in taking on major repressive regimes. Writing in the introduction of a Ford
Foundation work on women’s rights, the foundation’s then president, Franklin
Thomas, observed that in 1972, his organization “began making grants
aimed explicitly at enhancing the rights and opportunities of women.”3 Over
the course of the next fourteen years, Thomas noted, the foundation’s
women’s program evolved from a very limited number of discrete activities
“into a major influence” on the foundation’s work.
In at least one sense, the fundamental shift in policy and programming
between 1970 and 1972 did not result in a sharp and total break from what
had prevailed during the foundation’s previous quarter century. It had had a
program on reproductive rights that was situated within the International
Division’s Population Office. The purpose of the office was population
planning, not women’s rights.4 Population growth explosions, especially in
the Third World, had been a burning issue in the post-war period, and the
foundation gave it appropriate attention. Women staffers in the Population
Office recognized that the elevation of women’s status would tend to dimin-
ish the number of births. What was more important, they contended, was
that the foundation adopt a new and separate goal: promoting “women’s
well being as an end in itself, not just as an instrument of population policy.”5
How the transformation in foundation policy came about makes for
instructive reading. It was not the product initially of foundation leadership
nor of direct influences exerted by leadership. Rather, it was the result of a
groundswell from the lower reaches of the foundation, from women staff
associates, clamoring, first, on behalf of their own personal needs and rights,
and then for women’s rights generally. The sixties, of course, provided a
powerful initial stimulant, with the drive of blacks in the United States, for
meaningful civil rights. The response of the Ford Foundation was a positive
one in a variety of domestic areas. But the foundation, during that decade,
“virtually ignored in its equal opportunity initiatives,”—as recorded by one
study—the women’s rights issues.6 That subject was not, however, entirely
neglected. In asserting the civil rights of disadvantaged blacks, the founda-
tion supported programs for day care and the betterment of conditions for
domestic workers. At the same time, in keeping with its very early tradition
of helping strengthen universities, the foundation also significantly assisted
the programs for the encouragement of women’s careers in science, engi-
neering, and mathematics. Moreover, as part of its earlier support for birth
control, the foundation provided “massive support” for research and educa-
tion on matters related to methods for achieving this aim. However, the
intent at that time was closely related to the goal of limiting population
growth, not to the needs and rights of women. If no programming was
advanced for women’s rights during the sixties, it was not likely that any
effort would have been mounted to promote women to key staff positions,
which would have offered a harbinger for future programming. A foundation
report in 1974 acknowledged that even if women indirectly benefited from
the foundation’s general social, educational, and civil rights activities, the
extent of women’s direct representation in them had “been as proportion-
ately low . . . as in many other parts of American life.”7
The board of trustees, in 1966, may have designated “equal opportunity”
the first concern of the foundation, but it certainly did not apply to
women, nor even to women on its own staff. As late as 1971, every one of
the foundation’s senior officers were men, as were every member of its board
of trustees.8 The highest ranking woman staffer was an assistant general
counsel, Sheila McLean, who would play an important role in the founda-
tion’s work against apartheid in South Africa. Several other women held pro-
gram officer positions. Stirrings of criticism leading to a breakthrough began
only in May 1970, when a junior staffer in the foundation’s National
Affairs Division prepared a memorandum, signed by 150 staffers and sent to
President McGeorge Bundy, noting the absence of any women on the board
of trustees. The memo pointed to an embarrassing reality by listing the
names of prominent women who could easily qualify to serve on the board.
During the same month, at a foundation staff convocation, the issue of the
status of staff women was resumed.
Women’s Rights: “A Position of Empowerment” 211
A few more challenging initiatives were taken in the next month by a

woman staffer from the education and research division, Gail Spangenberg.
Already quite familiar, personally, with women’s rights, she wrote a long
memo to Bundy urging him to undertake four tasks: appoint women to
the board of trustees; examine, generally, the foundation’s practice concern-
ing women; hold seminars on women’s issues; and, most importantly, set up
a mechanism in the form of a task force to implement these initiatives.9 The
display of courage by the young woman, who had never met Bundy, was
rewarded by the foundation president with a personal invitation to his office.
Bundy displayed keen interest. Following a one-hour meeting, he appointed
a committee to look into the proposals, designating, at the same time, a
foundation vice-president as its chair, thereby giving the group a certain sta-
tus. A month-long inquiry resulted in a report with several wide-ranging rec-
ommendations that closely adhered to the Spangenberg proposals. Within a
few years, most were implemented, beginning with the election to the
board of two prominent professional women.
Specific benefits, like salary increases aimed at eliminating the gap between
male and female staffers, were extended. More pertinently, the foundation’s
maternity leave policy was significantly improved. Even more dramatic was
the decision to subsidize day care for staffers. The foundation was one of the
very first employers to accept this responsibility. While no immediate staff
breakthrough came at the highest, senior level, meaningful changes were
wrought at the mid-staff level, where a gain of twenty-five professional staff
posts for women was won. Among those who achieved a significant break-
through was the current president, Susan Berresford, who at the time was
promoted to program officer in the National Affairs Division. She had only
joined the foundation in 1970. A decade later, in 1980, Berresford achieved
an even more spectacular upgrading, to vice-president. Sixteen years later, in
1996, she was appointed to her present position.
No sooner had women begun occupying new mid-level positions in the
foundation than they sought to impose such affirmative standards upon
the very group that they dealt with: recipients of foundation grants. A survey
by the National Affairs Division found that only 6 percent of its 340 grantees
employed women in high-level positions in their institutions, and in addi-
tion, these women earned lower salaries than men. Several women middle-
level staffers, including Berresford, urged the foundation to require institu-
tional grantees to establish affirmative action with respect to both gender and
race in their hiring practices. The recommendation was acted upon in a pos-
itive manner by Bundy in 1974. Institutional grantees were called upon to
remove “restraints” with respect to hiring and promotion. Statements of
commitment along these lines were required of those making application
for grants.10
A small group of women activists at the foundation, including Berresford,
McLean, and Spangenberg, began meeting frequently at lunch, initially in
the latter part of 1971. An outcome of the meeting was a new focus upon
the awarding of grants for those researching women’s issues. The informal
network for a feminist agenda would soon assume an institutional shape. And
the very impact of their lobbying was quietly felt. Bundy, in a paper to the
board of trustees in March 1972, acknowledged that the foundation “[had]
been relatively insensitive to the special problems and needs of women and
the unfair, often unreasonable, obstacles and barriers they faced.”11 The foun-
dation, he recommended, through its grant-making efforts, “should be able
to foster changes and social progress” with respect to women’s rights in such
areas as employment, education, and law and public policy.
It was apparent that the foundation president had become more than
responsive to suggestions flowing from the small group of women feminists
in the organization that had become whistle-blowers. Bundy was transform-
ing the feminist staff drive into formal policy. An innovator, as he had showed
himself to be on other human rights matters, he even went to the trouble of
formalizing his until-then informal cabinet of female advisers. He created,
within the foundation, a Task Force on Women. Soon thereafter, a black
woman staffer was added to the previous all-white group, also a result of lob-
bying, this time by black women professionals. At the same time, Bundy
sought to enhance the Task Force’s internal power and influence by selecting
two foundation vice presidents to co-chair the Task Force.
While national grant programs of the foundation would easily be adopted,
international programming was more subject to “cultural constraints,” as the
vice-president in charge of the international division, David Bell, noted.
Although the division had supported grants dealing with birth control and
family planning, programs had been prompted for population control pur-
poses and not because of a deep awareness that women played a key role in
agricultural production. Elinor Barber, a member of the Task Force who
worked in the division, was soon priming the pump for specific women’s pro-
grams and grants in the international field.
In its final report and recommendations to the board of trustees in March
1973, the Task Force called for across-the-board programs—whether dealing
with domestic or international issues—in affirming affirmative action,
women’s economics status, equity in education, and the need for changing
attitudes toward women. Bundy now moved to make the valuable internal
lobbying apparatus a continuing institutional factor in the foundation. He
created, at the very end of 1973, the Coordinating Committee on Women’s
Programs to replace the Task Force. The influence of the Coordinating
Committee and its predecessor was conducted delicately, so as not to alien-
ate males in the still male-dominated organizational structure. But the
Coordinating Committee would have a long-term impact. A foundation
vice-president noted, “the screw is tightened every day and very carefully.”12
He was referring to the constant pressure of the women activists. But that
pressure and the positive response to it made the organization, far and away,
the leader in the field of women’s rights. A top official of the major lobbying
organization, National Organization for Women (NOW), Mary Jean Tulley,
declared, “among the [philanthropic] giants, only the Ford Foundation has
moved in all the appropriate ways to meet the needs of the feminists.”13
While the women’s issues were more slow to reach priority attention in
the international field as compared with the domestic area, it was nonetheless
clear that the overseas offices of the foundation were now rather quick to
gather information about the condition of women in the labor force in vari-
ous countries, particularly in rural areas with notable reference to agriculture.
The accumulation of research findings would be followed with foundation-
sponsored conferences and publications whose purposes were to promote
general awareness and consciousness-raising that might then be followed by
experimental projects that the foundation could support.
The office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, proved to be especially productive with
its programs, although other offices followed similar methods, if only on a
smaller scale. While the broad issue of women’s concerns were highlighted,
as elsewhere, by research, seminars, and reports, the foundation also actively
helped establish a pilot project for rural women’s cooperatives. The intent
was not only to make rural activity more productive, but also to enhance
significantly women’s skills.14 At the same time, the foundation provided the
Bangladeshi government with a grant of two hundred thousand dollars to
establish a research unit that might explore all aspects of the topic of women
in agriculture. A second grant of one hundred twenty thousand dollars offered
training for women who might seek to do research in the field, or who might
wish to be involved in policy formation as related to rural development,
population control, and education.
Elsewhere, the foundation funded other types of research. One hundred
thousand dollars was given as a grant in Brazil for research on women’s edu-
cation and employment. A quarter of one million dollars was awarded to
Beirut University in Lebanon to establish an Institution for Women’s Studies,
and still another grant of one hundred sixty thousand dollars was given to the
well-known African Training and Research Centre for Women in order for
people to study women’s legal and economic status.15 A second aim of this
grant was to train women in food production and in small business manage-
ment. Other sizable grants were given to the University of Dar es Salaam
designed to enable Tanzanian women to pursue post-graduate education.
Any impact of the foundation’s program in the Third World during the
early part of the seventies was very limited. Absent were women pressure
groups through whom advice and assistance could be channeled. And Third
World governments were hardly responsive.16 By 1975, the external situation
had changed, as Western feminists began to exert a serious pressure upon
international institutions. The United Nations formally declared 1975 to be
International Women’s Year, and organized a world conference to be held at
the beginning of the summer in Mexico City. While examining, in various
UN conference sessions, reports on the prevailing women’s status, the repre-
sentatives went on to reach an agreement on a broad ten-year program,
“Decade for Women Program.” The focus of the UN clearly had crystallized
on the women’s rights issue, and it assumed the shape of a long-term project.
If the early seventies saw the foundation, as a result of pressure from
women staffers, take on women’s rights as a priority concern, that concern,
nonetheless, was limited to domestic U.S. programming (with some spillage

to Canada and Western Europe). The Third World of Africa, Asia, and Latin
America was largely excluded from the exciting new programming. While the
International Division of the organization, through its Population Office,
remained concerned with providing information and knowledge about both
birth control and family planning, the focus was not on women’s rights, but
rather on reducing excessive population. An internal document in November
1975 frankly acknowledged that the work of the foundation’s Coordinating
Committee on Women’s Programs were devoted to domestic women’s prob-
lems “even though the Coordinating Committee,” in principle, “[included]
among its concerns the status of women in developing countries.”17
This is not to say that the International division was totally unconcerned.
Grants by the division on women’s issues, while mainly related to its primary
population concerns during 1973–75, totaled $1,200,000, which was bro-
ken into categories of research, education and training, and action-oriented
programs. The actual number of grants during this period was a very modest
seventy-one.18 Recognizing the limited character of the appropriation and of
the grants, the critical “Information Paper” commented, “the wisest of opin-
ion in the International Division at this time strongly favors the view that a
good deal more needs to be done.”19
What would then bring about the change in division programming and in
the foundation as a whole was indicated in an interoffice memorandum on
August 6, 1975. It was attached to the internal memorandum dated November
1975. The interoffice memo was written by Adrienne Germaine, a mid-level
staff member of the International Division, to David Bell, the vice-president
of the division. The subject reported in the memorandum was, “World
Conference of the International Women’s Year,” held in Mexico City, June
19–July 2, 1975.20 Appended to Germaine’s memorandum was a detailed
report of the UN-sponsored conference on International Women’s Year. It is
clear from her writing that she regarded the conference as a guidepost for
future planning by the foundation’s International Division. In her intro-
duction to a detailed summary of the conference proceedings, Germaine
observed that the proceedings enabled her to outline “the major theme” of
the UN meeting and draw “conclusions for International Division pro-
gramming.”21 In the same memo, after briefly referring to the “World Plan
of Action” adopted by the conference, she wrote, “Most important from a
Foundation perspective, the Plan calls on international agencies . . . for assis-
tance in its implementation.”
The summary, with comments by Germaine, indicated how the International
Division could find the conference decisions to be a point of departure for,
especially emphasizing a particular section of the conference’s Declaration of
Mexico, which stated, all women, “whatever differences exist between them,
share the painful experience of . . . unequal treatment.”22 To underscore her
point, she quoted the following comments at the conference by an official
from the Nigerian Ministry of Public Health: “now I know that women all
over the world have this same pain.”23 What was signaled by the declaration,
Germaine contended, was the need for international assistance to enable

women to define and act upon their priorities and goals. Employment, edu-
cation, and family planning were given emphasis by the conference, as set
forth in the summary.
While Germaine commented favorably about the adopted declaration, she
could hardly fail to note that the resolution vote on its adoption was not
unanimous: eighty-nine voted in favor but two voted against it—the United
States and Israel—and about twenty from Western Europe abstained. The
negative votes were prompted by the inclusion in the declaration of hostile
references to Zionism, which was equated with every form of political evil
such as colonialism, neocolonialism, and apartheid. The women from
Arab countries had lobbied successfully for this condemnation of what in
essence is the Jewish political aspiration of national self-determination. Several
months after the Mexico City conference, Arab countries, joined by the
Soviet bloc, would successfully win the endorsement in the UN General
Assembly of a resolution defining Zionism as a “form of racism and racial
discrimination.”
Apparently, the political abuse of a conference on women by the introduc-
tion of harsh language on Zionism did not trouble Germaine. She offered no
evaluation of how the hostile references to Zionism were included in the dec-
laration. The only comment she would make was that the vote on the decla-
ration was “overwhelmingly positive.” That it might carry later a serious
negative impact did not seem to evoke concern. Later, at UN women’s con-
ferences, the Arabs and their Soviet and Muslim allies would seek to again
equate Zionism with racism, only to meet with powerful resistance from the
Western democracies. Thus, at UN conferences on women in Copenhagen
in 1980 and in Nairobi in 1985, anti-Zionist references would find no echo.
Especially at the conference in Nairobi did the Arabs press heavily for an anti-
Zionist resolution, apparently presuming that they would find strong allies
among African women. This proved to be a miscalculation.
Adamant opposition from the United States, including the threat of a
walkout, won support from the West and even from some countries in Africa.
The determination of the United States and the West to refuse acquiescence
to what was considered a political intrusion was summed up by a top U.S.
official in the American delegation, Ambassador Alan L. Keyes, as follows:
“we reject the obscene notion that Zionism is a cause of racism and we
believe, no matter how often that slanderous lie is repeated, no amount of
reiteration shall ever lend any truth to this whatsoever.”24 The episode, while
but incidental to the significant work that the Ford Foundation was achiev-
ing in the field of women’s rights at international conferences, nonetheless
appeared to allow itself to appear indifferent when anti-Zionist resolutions
were introduced, even when they were not relevant to the objectives of the
conference. Later, this indifference at a UN-sponsored conference on racism
in Durban, South Africa, would produce embarrassing repercussions.
In September 1975, only one month after Germaine’s interoffice memo to
David Bell, the International Division held a special conference at foundation
headquarters, attended by all of its overseas representatives.25 The topic was

“Status, Roles, and Opportunities for Women.” Agreement on a policy deci-
sion was reached calling for “strong support for increased attention to the
position of women.” Two months later, a paper was produced reflecting
the new policy with respect to women’s rights in developing countries. There
was to be no question about the need “to intensify international program
activities related to women.”26 The only thing that remained for the founda-
tion to undertake, read the “Information Paper,” was to explain “why this
problem should claim [the Foundation’s] serious attention and whether and
how [the Foundation could undertake] anything significant towards mitigat-
ing it.” Answers to the question of “why” flow from the fact that “in the last
few years, there [had] arisen in many parts of the world increased awareness
of inequality between men and women.” The documentation had been pro-
vided in Mexico City. But, already, the foundation had recognized the seri-
ousness of the gender problem and what had to be done to respond to it.
A summary of the UN Plan of Action adopted at the conference in
Mexico City emphasized the following range of problems that existed and
persisted: a general pattern of discrimination against women; a “marked dis-
advantage” of women and girls in access to education; and the need for
improved access for women to health, nutrition, and other social services. A
delineated fourth area was less a matter of deprivation than the need to pro-
vide women with the autonomy to govern their personal and family respon-
sibilities with respect to births. The number and spacing of children were
seen as essential to the presentation of women’s autonomy. The “Information
Paper” underscored how the place of women in society was intertwined with
economic development. The foundation was already fully aware of this prob-
lem. In a 1972 staff working paper about the foundation and less developed
countries, it was recognized that the effect of development on income distri-
bution was by no means uniform.27
What was especially valuable in the “Information Paper” was how it chose
to elucidate the reasons why the foundation had to pay “special attention” to
women’s roles and opportunities. First, most importantly and “most funda-
mentally,” the Ford Foundation was an organization “espousing egalitarian
values.” In addition, it was an organization that was “devoted to increasing
human welfare.” These features inevitably prompted “Foundation concern”
with women who were “disadvantaged” or treated unequally.28 At this point,
the “Information Paper” brought up an issue that had been at the heart of
the foundation’s previous work in developing countries—welfare. It had
been an area of primary concern, but that objective had been consciously
avoided, to any significant extent. The issue had only recently surfaced dra-
matically, especially at the Mexico City conference. The foundation
“Information Paper” now argued that the relationship between women and
development “[had] been raised with good reason,” for recent evidence
pointed to the reality “that gains in welfare that [were] being stimulated
through programs, like [the Foundation], [were] not necessarily equal for
women and men.” It was not that the foundation’s welfare programs in
developing countries should be junked, but rather that “we should give more
attention to the participation of women” if “the effectiveness of existing pro-
grams” was to be “increased.”
The mea culpa may not have been as significant as a somewhat similar
apologia that the foundation had taken at approximately the same time in
Latin America, when it argued that economic welfare programs could not be
allowed to overlook basic human rights violations that had become a crucial
part of programs of the foundation. Indeed, the issue of human rights was
perceived as central and vital to the foundation, transcending even its welfare
program. At the same time, even while pressing for women’s equality in agri-
cultural production as well as in access to education, the “Information
t Paper”
took a very strong position on birth control. In the following quote from
the section entitled “Fertility limitation,” the policy position outlined was
quite striking, as was its language, which even today, would evoke a harsh
negative reaction in various quarters:
Greater freedom of choice with regard to the number of children women have
(including even the notion of having no children), would not only enhance
their human dignity, but would also permit them to achieve great economic
productivity and independence and to raise the children they have more effec-
tively.29
How, then, to achieve progress in the field of women’s rights?

Once again, it would come as no surprise that the foundation stressed
research, especially on women’s roles in rural development. Research would
seek to ascertain the different constraints on productivity, on access to more
technology, to training or to credit, and most important, to education itself.
Besides the need to fund research, it was seen as necessary to support the
funding of educational and training facilities for women. And such educa-
tion, the foundation paper noted, could not be restricted to only formal edu-
cational facilities, but rather had to be extended through the women’s
“participation in action programs.”30 Among these action programs, those
targeted specifically to women’s needs would be family planning, maternal
and child health, and nutrition. Parenthetically, the paper offered here an
exception, pointing out that “recent [foundation] programs in Bangladesh
have been directed at economic opportunities.”
Because of the broader functions that the International Division would
undertake, and given the budgeting restrictions of the foundation at this
time, in 1975, the paper proposed that a staff member of the division be
assigned the responsibility of serving a “circuit-riding” function. That person
would travel to all the regional offices of the foundation and would help pro-
vide “coordination” among development projects in the field. She would
also assist in the development of local projects. The new position would not
preclude the need “to strengthen [the Foundation’s] own staff experience.”
With the much higher priority now assigned to women’s rights in Third
World countries, it was hardly surprising that the International Division
would want to emphasize this internal need, even to the extent of employing
consultants specializing in women’s issues and roles.
The results from the Mexico City conference, one of the first international
initiatives on behalf of women, could hardly be more than modest, even if
they appeared to produce several breakthroughs. Many Third World govern-
ments, for the first time, established women’s bureaus or commissions to
advance the respective national agenda of women’s rights.31 In most places
in Africa and Asia, the progress was limited, but in Latin America, a strong
and vocal feminist movement had already emerged, insisting on social change.
More significantly, the embryonic movement in the Third World for women’s
rights was now provided with strong international backing by the UN.
Although the Ford Foundation’s role in Mexico City was extremely modest,
largely limited to subsidizing the travel to the UN conference of a small
number of Third World women, a beginning had been made. All future UN
women’s conferences would find the foundation playing a prominent role
in attendance and follow-up.
There could be little doubt that the seventies constituted a watershed in
the foundation’s taking on of women’s rights. Program budget data illumi-
nates the radical transformation. In 1972, the foundation spent only 6 per-
cent of its overall program on grants designed to advance opportunities
for women. The absolute figure was somewhat more than $1.2 million. By
1979, when Bundy relinquished control of the organization, the allocation
of grants for feminist purposes had jumped to an absolute figure of approxi-
mately $4.1 million.32 A study of financial expenditures for women programs
noted that the total allocated on feminist issues for all of the foundation divi-
sions reached $9.5 million. For the entire eight-year period, 1972–80, a total
of more than thirty million dollars had been allocated.
If early women’s rights programming signaled a milestone for the Ford
Foundation, credit for it must be extended to McGeorge Bundy, who broke
ground on this issue just as he had broken ground on such crucial interna-
tional issues as the Helsinki Final Act in Eastern Europe, authoritarian regimes
in Latin America, and confronting apartheid in South Africa. Nearing retire-
ment, he chose to accord appropriate recognition of the success achieved
on women’s issues by terminating in 1978 the Coordinating Committee on
Women’s Programs, which had been his most recent principal instrument for
promoting gender rights. In closing down the committee, Bundy pointed
out that all of the major foundation divisions had developed well-staffed pro-
grams and projects on behalf of women.33 At the same time, he recognized,
the Foundation’s [work on behalf of women is not complete,” and he assumed
that it would “go forward within the regular offices of the Foundation.”
But, of course, Bundy was hardly the sparkplug of the decade-old trans-
formational changes at the foundation. It was the handful of female junior
staffers who had inaugurated the struggle in the early seventies and inces-
santly pursued further and further goals. They had initiated the objectives of
promoting women to policy-making positions in the foundation and the
hiring of additional personnel to fulfill increased program goals. If, in 1972,
there were but a few female program officers, by 1976, there were almost a
dozen women whose responsibilities entailed the preparation and considera-
tion of grants that furthered the feminist agenda.34 And the tiny group of
women staffers would not quit and call it a day. In the preparation of papers
for the board of trustees meeting in 1976, the activist group, which included
Berresford, urged the board to expand the women’s program and make it a
high priority for the decade of the eighties. This pressure was not in vain. The
new foundation president, Franklin Thomas, was as keenly interested in
women’s rights as had been his predecessor, and the board of trustees was
equally responsive. In an almost revolutionary step, the trustees approved an
increase of more than 100 percent in expenditures for women’s projects for
the years 1980–81. In absolute terms, the new budgetary allocation was to
be $19.3 million. This figure would constitute no less than 10 percent of all
foundation project spending during those two years.
Even more significant was President Thomas’s decision to restore the
foundation-wide mechanism that had triggered the historic change in women’s
rights. Now to be called the Women’s Program Group, it was to oversee and
review all women’s programs.35 Susan Berresford was chosen as its chairper-
son. A number of members of the original group from the early seventies—
the Task Force on Women—were asked to serve. Having achieved such
significant progress, the group was even more determined than its predeces-
sor, the Coordinating Committee, to guide the foundation in a more
dynamic direction. It reviewed every group that had been approved for a pre-
vious grant, and then prepared a statement to the foundation’s president
about the proposed grant’s relationship to women’s concerns. Staff members
proposing grants had to become sensitive to gender, even if the grant had
little to do specifically with gender.
To underscore the new significance of the gender issue, Berresford was
assigned the responsibility of interviewing most of the finalists who were cur-
rently candidates for all professional staff positions. Shortly afterward, she
was named by Thomas vice-president in charge of programming for both the
U.S. and the International Affairs Divisions. It was a most significant step in
symbolizing how women’s rights had come to occupy a central place in the
foundation structure and policy.
Of landmark importance was a special meeting in June 1979 of the
Women’s Program Group, during which a detailed review of their experi-
ences and achievements was undertaken. The review later took the form of a
staff paper that was submitted to the board of trustees in December 1979. It
was soon published and widely distributed as a booklet entitled, “Women in
the World.”36 The study placed the foundation’s work on women’s rights
in the global context of the persistent social and economic disadvantages for
women, with emphasis on the universality of sex discrimination and the
urgent need for a sustained effort to attack it. A crucial theme of the work
was that gender discrimination had to be seen as a violation of fundamental
human rights; at the very same time, it had to be vitally dealt with in order to
significantly invigorate and fulfill development programs in the Third World.
What made this theme especially relevant was the decision taken by
Thomas early in his administration to eliminate the separate domestic and
international geographic divisions dealing with women. They were now to be
one indivisible program unit that would include poverty, human rights and
social justice, and education.37 The integration took place even as the appro-
priation for women’s rights doubled.38 The new focus in the eighties would
be on the foundation’s field offices, which arranged for lectures and seminars
about the new thrust. The higher budget enabled the assignment of newly-
hired staff members to the field offices, specializing exclusively on women’s
issues. In the largest field office—in New Delhi—there was created a cross-
programming operation similar to the Women’s Program Group in New
York headquarters. To intensify the focus of the overseas offices, a budgetary
mechanism was created whereby headquarters would match, on a four-to-
one allocation, all regional offices’ expenditures on women’s rights.39
This built-in funding incentive could only help overcome expected resist-
ance in overseas offices to the new emphasis on gender. The unified pro-
gram division would be subdivided into six thematic areas: urban poverty,
rural poverty and resources, human rights and social justice, governance and
public policy, education and culture, and international affairs. A gender
component would remain of critical importance to pursuing overall gender-
oriented targets in each of the categories, with the expansion of attention to
gender-related elements in the various areas. Moreover, in grant-making,
foundation staffers consciously sought out nongovernmental organizations
with special interests in gender issues as related to the subgroups. In the
Third World, such NGOs may not have been quickly available on a local
level. Nonetheless, grassroots initiatives were explored, as were NGOs in
developed countries who were in a position to embrace the gender question
in developing countries.
What was to be critical in the shaping of grant-making decisions was a
recognition that the livelihood of the bulk of poor women in Third World
countries rested on agriculture.40 Thus, to take account of this reality, grants
went to both governmental agencies and NGOs that provided rural women
with technical assistance. In Bangladesh, the foundation supported initiatives
to women’s programs and female development staff in the Ministry of
Agriculture. In Peru, the governmental Center for Peasant Research and
Advancement would be allocated funds, one half of which were earmarked
for projects that were designed for generating income specifically for peasant
women. The principle was similarly applied to agricultural programs at uni-
versities. Grants were extended, for example, to Tamil Nadu University in
India and Bogor Agricultural University in Indonesia for incorporating spe-
cific women’s needs within their research and training programs.
This overall orientation did not preclude grants being given to nonagri-
cultural activities in rural areas. Thus, the Rural Women’s Advisory Services
could and did receive a grant for helping women in certain types of jobs
like soap-making, market gardening, and goat-raising. In India, where vast
numbers of women were employed in silk production and dairying, the object
of grants was to upgrade women’s skills and, therefore, income. Employment
in cities was, by no means, excluded. In Madras, India, for example, the
Working Women’s Force served as a model in offering credits and technical
assistance.
The domestic-work focus required much attention. Grants were made by
the Brazilian regional office to the Professional Associates of Domestic
Workers of Rio and Sao Paulo in order to provide meeting places for women
domestic workers who had left rural areas to study such fundamental con-
cerns as health and legal rights. Another Latin American group, the Colombian
Association for Population Studies, was similarly supported. In South Africa,
the Institute of Race Relations, which had always been a favored group of the
foundation, was singled out for support, and its Domestic Workers’ and
Employers’ Project in particular was lauded.
Early in 1971, the Ford Foundation had one of its major staffers, Mariam
K. Chamberlain, an economist, begin inquiries on the advisability of creating
and supporting women’s study centers. Chamberlain, at that time a program
officer in the foundation’s Higher Education and Research Program, found
that there was a strong interest in this subject among highly placed women
educators. At the end of the year, she convened a meeting of top women aca-
demics to be held at the foundation. More importantly, she arranged for the
meeting site to be President Bundy’s conference room, with the hope that he
might sit in for at least a limited time. As it turned out, Bundy appeared at
the opening of the meeting and was so intrigued that he not only stayed
for the entire discussion, but he decided to actively participate in the dia-
logue. This purely informational meeting, Chamberlain observed, turned
out to be “a strategic one.”41 Soon, funds totaling a half million dollars were
allocated for study center programs. In 1972, the foundation started a faculty
fellowship program concerned with research on the role of women in various
societies and in women’s studies programs.
Chamberlain wrote about this particular “testimony” of how the founda-
tion had become seized with the issue. She amusingly entitled her contribu-
tion, “There Were Grandmothers, Too” (she was already senior both in age
and position at this early period). Her conclusion bears noting as follows:
“The impact of the [foundation] program went beyond anything we could
have imagined.”42 However, the initial programmatic activity of the founda-
tion with respect to women was geographically limited. Besides the United
States, it applied to a much lesser degree only to Canada and Western Europe.
Third World women were not covered. Only with the United Nations’
“Decade for Women,” initiated in Mexico City in 1975, would it assume a
global character. That UN conference, said Chamberlain, acted as “a galva-
nizing force” upon the international agenda.43
Women’s studies at a high academic level may have been inaugurated in
the United States, with the foundation playing a key role, but as the interna-
tional community, through the United Nations, had become seized with the
central issue of women’s rights, the program spread rapidly. The UN “Decade
for Women,” launched in 1975 and further extended in Copenhagen in
1980 and especially in Nairobi in 1985, deepened and broadened the base of
women’s studies outside of the United States. Even before the UN Mexico
City conference, the foundation had begun funding women’s studies in the
developing world. In 1973, it provided a grant to Beirut University College
to enable it to establish the Institute for Women’s Studies, the first in the
Arab community. Later, it helped create the Women and Development Unit
at the University of the West Indies in Barbados. Of particular importance
was the foundation’s funding in Senegal of the African Association of
Women for Research and Development.44
The major instrument of the international women’s rights program was
the NGO Forum, attended largely by women from a great variety of coun-
tries. At Copenhagen, the Forum held a special seminar on the subject,
attended by five hundred representatives from over fifty-five countries.45 A
leading organizer of the seminar was the Feminist Press, which had been
funded, in part, by the Ford Foundation. As noted by two scholars who had
worked for the Ford Foundation, the seminar resulted in “a world-wide
network of women’s studies, scholars and practitioners.”46 A major result of
the Copenhagen seminar was a powerful increase in women’s studies pro-
grams in India.
At the Nairobi 1985 conference, the NGO Forum specifically included
women’s studies programs that had been cosponsored by twenty-six organi-
zations that represented fifteen countries. Attendance was remarkably high,
including over one thousand people.47 Foundation funding was very much
integral to the conference’s seminars. Some attendees were provided with
direct grants, and the international congresses were provided with funds for
planning purposes.48 When the conference ended, the foundation’s field
offices in India, Bangladesh, and Latin America picked up the slack. They
supported women’s study centers as well as research and documentation pro-
grams on women and gender. While other foundations did offer assistance as
well, the Ford Foundation was “the chief supporter of research and pro-
gramming.”49
Throughout the Third World, the foundation served as the major player
in the funding of women’s studies. Especially was this the case in Latin America,
where, since 1990, assistance was provided to the National Autonomous
University of Mexico, the Pontifical Catholic University in Peru, as well as
the University of the Andes in Colombia. Elsewhere, institutes and study
centers in Uruguay, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic benefited. Nor
was Africa neglected. For example, assistance was provided to the Zimbabwe
Women’s Resource Center for the creation of a women’s documentation
center and research network.50
Contributions by the foundation went beyond academic centers to spe-
cialized courses on women’s studies, to scholarly journals dealing with the
subject of women’s studies, and to the organization of scholarly conferences.
Examples were the International Resource Network of Women of African

Decent in Harare, Zimbabwe, which published the journal, Network, and the
Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association, which, in 1991, con-
vened a conference on “The Status of Women’s Studies in Africa.” It was
held in November 1991.51 Summing up the impact of funding by the foun-
dation, the researcher, Beverley Guy-Sheftall, concluded, “without this sys-
tematic and sustained support, it is fair to say that women’s studies would
have had a very different history within the academy.”52
Nowhere in the developing world did the foundation play as prominent a
role in advancing women’s studies as it did in India.53 The year 1981 served
as a starting point following the decision of the board of trustees to signifi-
cantly expand work on women’s rights. In that year, a National Conference
on Women’s Studies was held in Bombay. It was a trailblazer in seeking to
expand serious concern about the oppression of women and about their
inequality in social and economic life. Significantly, the conference was
funded by the Ford Foundation and UNICEF. The conference was organ-
ized by the Research Unit on Women’s Studies, which itself was created by
the SNDT University of Bombay several months earlier. Clearly, Indian
higher education was already taking positive steps with respect to women’s
rights. Indeed, a Ford Foundation grant had come through in October to
enable a specialist on women’s rights to head the unit. Another foundation
grant permitted this key academic unit to expand its library through the
acquisition of policy documents, periodicals, and books.54 Even more impor-
tant was yet another foundation grant that allowed for staff training and the
holding of a workshop dealing with the methodology of women’s studies.
The Research Unit was on its way to becoming a champion in the prepara-
tion of teachers on women’s studies. At the end of the decade in 1990, an
additional grant from the foundation envisaged building academic expertise
and preparing teachers in continuing research efforts and in networking.55
Foundation assistance was not restricted either to universities or particular
cities. M. S. University was among those that focused upon women and
development. It acknowledged that its efforts to build a library and docu-
mentary center on women’s rights was “facilitated” by a grant from the foun-
dation.56 The new center was reported to have had “some remarkable
successes in collaborative work arising out of the Ford Foundation funded
project” dealing with women and development. A similar development took
place at Mysore University in 1989. Once the Women’s Studies Centre was
established there, a leading woman scholar, Rameshwari Varma, played a
major role in its assuming a variety of significant functions. Significantly, she
traced her personal involvement to having been given a Ford Foundation
Fellowship that, after a productive stay in the United States, permitted her
to visit and study various women’s studies centers in India.57 The foundation
was viewed as providing training and know-how for the field of women’s
studies centers, which Indian national policy sought to have adopted in
every university.
Sometimes, the university did not serve as the sponsoring organization;

rather, a workshop would be created that acted as an inspirational source for
giving expression to women’s rights. One major workshop, which was ini-
tiated in the 1980s through funding by the Ford Foundation and the promi-
nent Tata Institute of Social Sciences, exerted what a leading feminist advocate
called “a tremendous impact on all the participants,” each of whom would be
very much involved in programs for women.58
As law was often perceived as a critical element in securing women’s
rights, it was hardly unexpected that centers for women would ultimately
become intimately related to law schools. In 1987, the Centre for Women
and Law was started and funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation.59 It
was expected to act as a law reform group that would work closely with
women’s organizations. One of the major aims of the Centre was to offer
legal assistance to women. The foundation was seen as performing vital serv-
ices to the Centre. Its initial grant, wrote a leading figure in the Centre,
“made possible the birth of the centre and its legal aid activities, especially
in the rural mediation centre.” Various programs connected with mediation,
such as legal literacy and paralegal training programs, the writer observed,
“would not have been possible without the [Ford] grant either.”60
A corollary aim to the enhancement of women’s income was the need of
some to obtain bank loans for small strategic projects. This might have been
accomplished on a collective basis by poor women if assistance was extended.
Thus, the Grameen Bank and Working Women’s Forum were to facilitate a
group of small loans to Indian and Bangladeshi women, a practice founda-
tion regional offices encouraged.
With its strong traditional links to higher education and research centers,
the foundation could be expected to concentrate attention on appropriate
mechanisms for the advancing of women’s rights in developing countries
during the eighties. Prior years largely involved experimental initiatives,
i except,
of course, in the United States, where attention to women’s rights had been
already initiated in the seventies. Vigorous support was now extended by the
Ford Foundation to the Carlos Chagas Foundation in Brazil and other aca-
demic institutions. In these institutions, the foundation was performing the
following two interrelated functions with a flow of grants: preparing young
women scholars in a number of areas essential for research and scholarship,
and creating courses to broaden the educational base of the entire field.
India, especially, provided considerable evidence of the foundation initia-
tives. The field of women’s studies, spurred by the foundation, had devel-
oped in autonomous research institutes and played a key role in improving
women’s participation in development programs.61 Four major education
centers in India were selected to be recipients of foundation funding for
research purposes as well as for travel-study awards. One of them, the Center
for Women’s Development Studies, was actually created by the foundation.
Halfway around the world, in the Caribbean, the foundation laid the basis
for another successful undertaking at the University of the West Indies,
where a grant by the foundation established the key Women and Development
Unit. As the university occupied a most strategic position in shaping the

future for Caribbean leaders, the allocation inevitably made possible the spe-
cial programming for women’s rights.
Institutes, research centers, and universities in Africa were not neglected.
By means of grants to the African Association of Women for Research and
Development in Senegal, an entire network of social scientists and feminine
researchers was established. The purpose was to promote the better under-
standing of women’s roles among planners and policy makers throughout
the entire continent. Senegal had always been an academic leader, but Sudan
was added when a research center at the University of Khartoum was started.
The Development Studies Research Center of Khartoum in the center of
Africa would now be offered support for research and seminars to advance the
broad program of women’s rights. Further south, grants were made to
the University of Addis Ababa of Ethiopia and the University of Zimbabwe
to help train the pool of qualified women professionals in the development
field. These centers were to serve as trailblazers in making available the
research that would ultimately challenge “entrenched attitudes, practices and
policies” about women in specifically the African continent.62
Even if not endemic to women’s rights, health issues generally and issues
related to pregnancy had emerged as primary concerns once the foundation
moved into an area where the problems of the poor became a significant
object for public attention. Research, as well as objective reality, demonstrated
that there was a close linkage between early pregnancy and poverty. Thus, to
cope with poverty among women, the question of early pregnancy had to be
confronted. Various foundation field offices assumed the task of educat-
ing women about their reproductive health as well as their own sexuality.
Involved in this process was the need for support groups. The foundation’s
Brazil office and its Cairo office prepared demonstration booklets and held
workshops as part of a basic learning process.63 Ineluctably related to the edu-
cation process, especially as it bore closely upon poverty issues, was the
controversial problem in many Third World countries of freedom of choice
for abortion and the related need for access to safe and sanitary prac-
tices. Given the hostile attitudes in Third World countries to abortion, few
abortion-related grants emerged in most field offices in Asia and Africa.
Bangladesh was an exception, where the government provided support to
the Bangladesh Women’s Health Coalition for purposes of educating and
training providers of pertinent reproductive services.
An additional foundation concern about women’s rights in many areas of
the Third World was violence against women by their husbands or families.
Such violence was often deeply engraved in the cultural practices of various
societies, and it was not a problem that could be easily treated. However, as
more and more women’s groups became preoccupied with the problem, they
began organizing as a social group. Especially was that the case in parts of
Latin America and in India. A related problem flowing from tradition, mainly
in Africa, was female circumcision. The foundation did not shirk from seek-
ing to deal with this highly cultural problem that held obvious overtones of
personal considerations. Being on the cutting edge of women’s rights, it sup-

ported local women’s groups in their efforts, enabling them to develop
strategies for coping with circumcision issues. In addition, the foundation
supported studies of cultural patterns and practices. It was the foundation’s
view that the studies could exert a positive impact and result in changes in
public attitudes and policy.64
The outreach of the foundation had become extensive by the early eight-
ies. Not only was the foundation’s staff that dealt with women’s issues signif-
icantly enlarged by additional female personnel, but a special new position
was also created—the “circuit rider”—to service women’s groups that needed
assistance. Now, with a foundation vice-president newly appointed to oversee
a significantly expanded staff, and with the permanently functioning
Women’s Program Group assuming more and more functions, it was quite
apparent that the foundation, institutionally, had become a dominant ele-
ment in the field of women’s rights. To underscore the prominence of its
role, the foundation published and distributed documents, like “Women in
the World,” that spelled out its goals and how they were being implemented.
Even as the foundation’s women’s program was considerably enhanced,
economic and religious developments were moving in an opposite direc-
tion and, therewith, posing new, serious problems. The last years of the UN
decade on women’s rights were marked by a worldwide economic slowdown
that could not but deleteriously affect women’s economic prospects. At the
same time, the emergence of an increasing religious fundamentalism pro-
duced a growing resistance to many of the policies oriented to improving
women’s status.65
The timing of the profound clash between progressive developments and
retardation forces took place at the very time when the second major UN
conference on women was taking place in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985. Nearly
fifteen thousand delegates and women NGO participants were in attendance,
one third of whom came from developing countries. In addition to sessions
of the official intergovernmental conference, there was held a large scale
“Forum 85” organized by women nongovernmental organizations. No less
than one thousand workshops and panels were established by the Forum.
They served to enable participants to take pride in what had already been
accomplished by the women’s movement, and they instructed them on how
to deal with the emerging problems.
Foundation staffers met in June and October 1985 to discuss and re-assess
program strategies and priorities. Drawing upon the experiences and discus-
sions of the Nairobi conference, the foundation chose to borrow the special
technique of the UN meeting, the sponsoring of seminars on the various crit-
ical issues that could be expected to challenge women activists in the forth-
coming decade. The basic conclusion reached at Nairobi was that the work
on behalf of women’s rights had only begun. This conclusion would serve as
a point of departure for the foundation. Increasing women’s income had to
remain as the staple of the next decade, according to foundation staffers. In
addition to the satisfaction of women’s needs, the greater income would

serve to benefit development itself.
Income generation was thus seen as central to the goals of the foundation.
Therefore, grants were to be extended to enhance the local capacity to design
and evaluate such projects. Other grants were to be used for the training of
researchers and of advising institutions that provided technical and financial
assistance for such projects.66 In this context, the foundation and its field
offices would seek to bring women directly into the employment process
and income-generating projects. With this new objective, the foundation
would actively encourage affirmative action, which had been the keystone
of the foundation in the previous decade. Linked to affirmative action was
the foundation’s emphasis on creating opportunities for the education of
women. This was seen as the passport to improved employment options.
Encouragement of women’s education and training was established as a pri-
ority in the field offices of Asia and Africa.67
Nairobi was also perceived by the foundation as highlighting women’s
reproductive health, as this was seen as central to the maintenance of the fam-
ily. Maternal mortality was held to be unacceptably high. To maintain the
improved economic position of women, programs for the delaying and
the spacing of childbearing ineluctably moved to the heart of women’s
rights. Programming at Nairobi, too, demanded that considerable attention
be paid to the rise of religious fundamentalism as limiting the horizons of
women with respect to childbearing. The foundation saw it to be essential for
the protection of women’s rights that laws be introduced or the legal sys-
tem be reformed so that personal control over the childbearing process
could be assured.
Chapter 11
Fr o m N a i r o b i to B e i j i n g
T he UN Nairobi conference was by no means seen as the end of the

women’s rights decade. At the foundation’s Women’s Program Forum, held
on September 29, 1986, a year after Nairobi, a leading Third World activist
emphasized that the Nairobi conference should be viewed as the beginning
of an effort to improve women’s lives.1 This point was vigorously made by
Sandra Kebir, speaking on behalf of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee. It was a point that the foundation took seriously, as the Forum’s
very perception of its role was the “need to rely on local initiatives.” At the
heart of the foundation’s Third World program was the thesis that, in pin-
pointing “critical issues,” it was essential “to maintain the pluralism that
[had] been the source of creativity for the women’s movement.”2 Such a per-
ception underscored the foundation’s philosophy for not imposing Western
values upon the cultures of the Third World.
A priority program of the foundation for the mid-eighties grew out of the
tormenting data on documented child survival. The documentation was pro-
vided by specialists in a review of foundation programs on child survival and
reproductive health. According to the documentary evidence, some forty
thousand infants and young children died daily in developing countries.3 The
studies showed that child health was closely related to women’s rights, and
that inadequate medical and social services for women were identified as a
major component of the problem of infant and child deaths. Then a popula-
tion-based study of gynecological diseases among rural women in Bangladesh
showed that “social problems, not technological ones” were the source of
early deaths.4 Having determined the causative source, the central prob-
lem that emerged was to ascertain where to obtain appropriate services for
women.
Women’s needs on three separate levels had to be fulfilled. Contraceptive
funding had been a basic formula of the foundation since the 1950s, but it
had to be updated to account for such other needs as abortion and quality
care. A second need was recognized at the conference in Nairobi and, indeed,
had become a prime concern of the foundation since the seventies; this con-
cern was “the relationship between women’s empowerment and provision of
health within the [family] household.”5 Implicit was the recognition that the
increase of women’s earning abilities could help children’s health problems,

and, therewith, maintain at least modest degrees of health for the children of
the family.
The third and final need focused directly upon the child and its survival.
Until 1987, it was recognized that the foundation had not yet established a
“well-defined and unified program with a rounded rationale.”6 With the
three categories as a frame of reference, the researchers examined the sizable
commitments made in four field offices of the foundation—three in Asia and
one in Africa. They were located in Jakarta, Dhaka, New Delhi, and Cairo.
The funding showed that in 1987, grants for $1.5 million went to New
Delhi, India, $1.3 million was split between to Jakarta and Cairo, and one
million dollars was for Dhaka. The anticipated total grants for all develop-
ing countries in 1987 was expected to reach between six and seven mil-
lion dollars.7
The Asian field offices of the foundation were the principal operating
means for effectuating the medical thrust. The New Delhi office disbursed
funds to enable local institutions and agencies to extend their epidemiologi-
cal and management capabilities, encourage innovation designed to facilitate
the distribution of contraceptives, and to provide social-service research
support aimed at improving child survival. In Jakarta, the principal foci were
upon the testing of different strategies in order to increase community
involvement in child survival and women’s health, supporting research for
identifying specific determinants of infant mortality, and supporting epi-
demiological research within local communities. Dhaka’s special focus was
upon “reproductive health and, therefore, upon contraceptive safety” and the
prevention of “reproductive system infections.” In Cairo, the increase in
public health skills throughout the entire Arab region was the priority objec-
tive, especially through epidemiological as well as social-service training.8
Examples of guarantees that had produced basic changes in women’s
status in Third World countries were highlighted. Particularly outstanding
was the Indian group in Ahmedabad called the Self-Employed Women’s
Association (SEWA). A long-term grantee, SEWA, by 1986, had acquired
sixteen thousand members. In order to promote women as vital contributors
to society, SEWA pursued the goal of “gaining access to banking institu-
tions” essential for credit purposes. It also sought to win helpful labor laws
from which workers might benefit. At the same time, SEWA focused upon
getting governmental institutions to require that labor contracts be honored.
A final and important objective of SEWA was to acquire “police protection
against physical abuses.” The overall purpose of SEWA was to win respect for
women and to win access to existing community health programs. If the
foundation focused attention upon the group and provided valuable fund-
ing, it was because “the process at work within SEWA [would] provide les-
sons for other organizations.”9
A unique program was supported in Cairo. The foundation allocated funds
for television programming that was based upon the popular American pro-
gram, “Sesame Street.” At the same time, it supported institutions providing
From Nairobi to Bejing 231
a range of healthcare services for children, such as immunization and oral

dehydration therapy deemed essential for overcoming diseases accompa-
nied by diarrhea. In Dhaka, the field office provided support for the Dhaka
Women’s Health Coalition, a private voluntary organization that managed
four clinics in rural Bangladesh. Its services included providing contracep-
tion, the treatment of infections connected with pregnancy, and child care.
In assessing the foundation’s advantages and achievements as compared to
other organizations, the researchers concluded that it was making a unique
contribution by providing “social solutions for problems of the human con-
dition.”10 It was axiomatic that poverty had to be addressed socially, and the
foundation encouraged grantees to be creative in developing distinctive
responses to critical problems. The following final comment was especially
appropriate: “when the history of the foundation’s work is compared with
the parallel history of major national and international agencies, it is no exag-
geration to say that grantees of the foundation . . . have defined issues and
pointed to solutions that were subsequently adopted on a large scale.”11 As
evidence, the authors pointed specifically to the health programs of the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Fund for Population Activities, the
World Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
A much earlier and important, if not too well noticed, international con-
ference on human rights, held in Tehran in 1968, accorded recognition to
the following thesis not yet recognized in law and practice: “parents have a
basic right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of
their children.”12 The thesis was highly relevant, though not implemented,
in most of the Third World, with quite a significant demographic conse-
quences bearing upon women’s health in these areas and, equally signifi-
cantly, upon poverty. It was a problem with which the Ford Foundation was
very much concerned, firstly in terms of population considerations, and then
more determinedly with respect to women’s rights. The issue became far more
pressing as considerable progress in women’s rights was registered during
the seventies and eighties. During the early nineties, the issue moved to the
forefront of the women’s struggle.
Not surprisingly, the foundation would become deeply preoccupied with
the problem. Of necessity, a meaningful solution required carefully devised
strategies. A paper was prepared for the foundation’s board of trustees that
was to be of central concern. Entitled “Reproductive Health: A Strategy for
the Nineties,” it was quickly turned into a booklet designed for a wide audi-
ence.13 President Franklin Thomas, in a the preface, highlighted its immedi-
ate pertinence by noting that the board chose to approve a ten-year program
totaling the huge sum of $125 million, which made reproductive health “the
centerpiece” of the foundation’s program on women’s rights.14 Of special
attention, Thomas noted, was the situation of “disadvantaged women of
developing countries in both rural and urban areas.”
That the strategy paper would begin with fundamental demographic data
in Third World countries was not unexpected, as the foundation had very early
on been seized by population explosion problems in developing countries. In
fact, said Thomas, the foundation, during the fifties and sixties, provided
“grants [that] helped develop demography as an independent discipline.” In
the subsequent decades of the seventies and eighties, the focus of the foun-
dation shifted to women’s rights, which, when translated into Third World
terms, meant improving the lives of “disadvantaged” women with a host
of grants to improve women’s incomes, education, and health. Now in the
nineties, the focus once again had shifted to reproductive rights.
New data on the extent of the population explosion that the foundation
had assembled and the consequent impact upon increasing poverty in
the Third World, most notably affecting disadvantaged women, were deci-
sive factors compelling a return to reproductive issues. During the preceding
forty years, from 1950 to 1990, an unprecedented population growth had
taken place. The world’s population had more than doubled, from 2.5 billion
to 5.3 billion. Most of that increase occurred in developing countries.
Running parallel with the demographic growth was a sharp decline in death
rates, including dramatic decreases in infant and child mortality rates. Medical
and scientific advances were responsible for the dramatic population develop-
ment.15 If projected into the future, the population was expected to more
than double during the next century.
The population explosion, noted the foundation study, “resulted in a mas-
sive increase in the numbers of people living in poverty, with women and
children bearing the largest share of the burden.” It should be pointed out,
of course, that advances in contraception had also taken place, especially in
the sixties, with the pill and intrauterine devices.16 However, for the “disad-
vantaged” woman and her family, initially, there were severe limitations to
the applicability of the newer contraceptive devices, with information about
them and their use being especially limited. In the early sixties, only 9 percent
of all women of reproductive age in the developing world were using contra-
ceptives; by 1991, this figure jumped to 50 percent as a result of family-
planning educational efforts. Still, considerable unevenness prevailed in the
Third World. In the more developed parts of Asia and Latin America, contra-
ceptive use was thought to be 60 percent or higher. In contrast, in most of
Africa and in various parts of Asia, especially in the Arab world, educational
“programs [were] weak or non-existent and contraceptive use was under 15
percent.” Strikingly, it was found that fertility rates dropped by 25 percent in
the more advanced countries of Latin America and Asia.17
Contraception alone, research studies showed, did not significantly reduce
birth rates. Rather, economic development and broad family planning pro-
grams, when combined with education about contraception, could make
deep inroads into the limiting of population growth. This was an essential
finding of the foundation. Its specialists emphasized: “Women must be able
to achieve social status and dignity, to manage their own health and sexual-
ity, and to exercise their rights in society and in partnership with men.”18
Thus, the economic status of women had to be a vital concern of society, as
in developing countries, women workers accounted for more than half of the
food produced and, at the same time, they worked up to eighteen hours a
day, while holding segregated low-paying jobs.
In consequence, during the eighties, the foundation placed emphasis on
the improvement of women’s economic opportunities, as well as their educa-
tion and health. If its grants for women projects had doubled in 1980 as com-
pared with 1972, during the next three years, the total allocation again
doubled.19 The grants covered the improvement of women’s incomes and
employment opportunities, along with the fostering of women’s study pro-
grams and policy research relating to women’s issues. At the same time,
grants were provided to safeguard women’s reproductive choices, including
the improving of “access to safe abortion services.20 The support for abor-
tion showed a certain courage, as religious fundamentalism became increas-
ingly influential and the open advocacy of abortion was a risky pursuit in the
public arena. It would become much more so in the following two decades.
But the foundation was not reluctant to be forthright on this issue, even as it
assumed a forthright posture in appropriating a $4.5 million grant to combat
the AIDS pandemic.21
The foundation perceived the new decade of the nineties as requiring a
program for women to develop solutions to their reproductive health and
population problems. In 1991, a ten-year program was developed requiring
the funding of an estimated $12.5 million per year. Social science, a favorite
form of inquiry and policy formulation, was to be its weapon of choice.
Research and training sites were to be established in developing countries. A
variety of disciplines from the social-science field was to be employed, tap-
ping major social-science institutions. It would necessitate graduate training,
travel, and study awards, research staff and even the establishment of libraries
and the holding of seminars.
But a major objective of the new strategy was “to empower women and
women’s organizations,” to overcome “barriers to improved reproductive
health” by means of “better health services” as well as “through changes in
cultural, social and economic factors.”22 Public discussion and conscious-
ness-raising were regarded as especially important in Third World areas. To
illustrate the new and expanded role of the foundation, the reproductive
report pointed to several grant programs. In Nigeria, grants were provided
for the specialized training of doctors to cope with urinary problems and
other health problems affecting women in dealing with prenatal and postna-
tal matters.
In India, the Self-Employed Women’s Association, which had begun as a
union of street vendors, was provided with loans to develop close links to the
existing health care system. Women, in this way, were to be empowered as
providers and users of health services. In Bangladesh, grants were made avail-
able so as to enable women’s groups to be more closely linked to the formal
health education programs. More specifically, women were to be trained to
secure and refrigerate needed vaccines, as well as to assure regular vaccination
of their children. These were extremely modest, even simple, programs, but
for poor villagers, they were indispensable and invaluable tasks. On a higher
level, nurses and midwives in Nigeria were given grants for training pur-
poses related to women and children issues. At the same time, the foundation
offered grants for educational activities that would enable women “to make
informed choices” as well as to “raise questions important to them with their
health providers.”23 For the foundation, education on all aspects was of cen-
tral importance and extended to the most simple needs as well as to the more
complex. Thus, the foundation called for programs that would “strengthen
women’s ability to participate in discussions in their own country and at all
levels of public debate.”24
Thus, in India, the foundation funded the state’s National Planning
Commission in the women and development chapter of its Five-Year Plan
designed to stimulate discussion at every level so that a forum might be held
to discuss the diverse problems that women faced in a variety of areas.
Similarly, it funded, in part, a symposium in Rio de Janeiro in 1988 by the
International Women’s Health Coalition. The symposium was intended to
produce a comprehensive discussion of abortion, covering all aspects of the
issue—medical, ethical, economic, legal, and social.
The UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China,
from August 30 through September 8, 1995, constituted the climactic event
for the Ford Foundation in its efforts on behalf of women’s rights. It was
approximately a quarter century earlier that the foundation had embarked
on its tradition-shattering program for advancing women’s economic status,
promoting the teaching of women’s issues in higher education, expanding
reproductive rights—including the formerly circumscribed issue of abortion
rights—and opening up the topic of violence against women to judicial
scrutiny and counteraction. All of these matters would be on the agenda of
the NGO Forum and the intergovernmental conference that immediately
followed.
For the foundation, Beijing was to mark a goal of intense activism, of the
biggest expenditures of funds, and of helping guide the largest-ever assem-
blage of women for consideration of a specific series of gender objectives in
history. The UN event made huge headlines in the media, but, behind the
scenes, a well-orchestrated staff operation of the foundation mobilized
masses of women toward objectives of gender rights. And the conference was
held in a city and country where the very words “women’s rights” were not
in use. But the Beijing meeting was itself the culmination of a series of pre-
liminary regional conclaves begun over a year before this final event. The first
was held in June 1994 in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the countries of Asia and the
Pacific Ocean; then in September in Mar de Plata, Argentina, for Latin
America and the Caribbean; in October in Vienna, Austria, for Europe and
North America; in November in Dakar, Senegal, for Africa; and again in the
same month in Amman, Jordan, for the mainly Arab countries of Western
Asia. A final preparatory session, known as “Prepcom,” was scheduled for
March–April 1995 at UN headquarters in New York.25
What was unique about the preparatory and regional meetings—and this
was vital for the foundation’s role—was the authority provided by the UN
for NGOs to hold their own conferences parallel with or prior to the regional
official governmental gatherings. The new UN procedure was unprece-
dented with respect to women’s conferences. It was tried, however, in 1993
with an UN-sponsored conference on human rights, and proved fruitful.
That intergovernmental conference held in 1993 in Vienna, Austria, had
been preceded by an NGO conference whose proposals then influenced the
succeeding intergovernmental conference. As the foundation was a great
sponsor of NGOs, it was in a position to influence the NGO meeting and,
thereby, the intergovernmental meeting.
Preparation by women’s groups for participation in the Beijing meeting
began remarkably early—in 1991, four years before the historic event.26 A
series of UN conferences during the intervening years at which women’s
issues were aired, mostly in a marginal way, and in which some women
activists were involved, hastened the preparation. The conferences were on
“Environment and Development,” and were held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992;
on the already mentioned issue of “Human Rights,” held in Vienna in
1993; on “Population and Development,” in Cairo in 1994; and on “Social
Development,” in Copenhagen in 1995.
The human rights conference in Vienna warrants special attention, as the
women’s issue emerged in a major and significant way here.27 A key figure at
the Vienna conference who was especially prominent in the women’s rights
movement was Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the Center for
Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. She had already estab-
lished her reputation as an effective policy analyst and leader of women in
September 1986 when she wrote a special study for the foundation’s
t Women’s
Program Forum.28 Highlighted in her address were the several NGOs that
had given meaning and vitality to the thrust of the foundation in supporting
the work of women’s organizations. Only a few years later, when women’s
organizations were beginning their early planning for Beijing in 1991, her
group at Rutgers was given a huge grant by the foundation that was to run
from 1991 to 1997. The total was for $660,000. On the eve of the human
rights conference in Vienna, which was not initially gender-oriented, she was
given fifty-five thousand dollars for media training. Then, in 1995, when
Beijing was about to begin, Bunch was provided with sixty thousand dollars.
Two years later, her group was given one hundred thousand dollars, and then
$1,476,000 for the ten-year period from 1997 until 2006.29
Bunch’s role leading up to and at the Vienna World Conference on
Human Rights was nothing less than extraordinary. This major UN-spon-
sored conference was responsible for the breakthrough that finally created
the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. At the
same time, it established, for the very first time at the UN and in interna-
tional human rights circles, the theme of the total identity of women’s rights
and human rights. Previously they were mot considered as identical in mean-
ing and character. How this was achieved at Vienna is no mystery.
A central concern in the women’s movement, as Bunch would note, was
violence directed specifically against women. In an essay published by UNICEF,
she perceptively would capture the nature of this women’s issue as it seized
hold of the international imagination during the last decade of the twentieth
century.30 Statistical data, presented in a bullet-like fashion, illuminated the
literally monumental scope of the problem: roughly sixty million women
who should have been alive at the time were “missing” because of gender
discrimination, predominantly in southwest Asia, China, and North Africa.
Then came data on forms of other violence confronting women: in the
United States, where overall violent crimes against women had been growing
in the last quarter of the twentieth century, a woman was physically abused
by her intimate partner every nine seconds; in India, more than five thousand
women were killed each year because their in-laws considered their dowries
inadequate; rape as a weapon of war had been documented in seven countries
in recent years; about two million girls each year, or six thousand every day,
were genitally mutilated, with the total number of victims being 130 million
in twenty-eight countries; and more than one million children, overwhelm-
ingly female, were forced into prostitution every year, the majority of these
cases occurring in Asia.
Gender violence, mainly at home, according to Bunch, has come to be
recognized only in the 1990s as a human rights issue. She cited a World Bank
analysis of thirty-five recent studies from industrialized and developing coun-
tries showing that between one-quarter to one-half of all women have suf-
fered physical abuse from an intimate partner. In the United States, only one
in one-hundred battered women ever report the abuse. Statistics on rape in
industrialized and developing counties revealed similar patterns: between
one in five and one in seven women will be victims of rape in their lifetime.
The figures on rape become huge in circumstances of ethnic violence and
genocide: twenty thousand women in Bosnia and more than fifteen thousand
in Rwanda were raped.
It was at the World Conference in Vienna in 1993 that the subject of
“women’s rights as human rights” formally entered into international dis-
course. This breakthrough was as significant as the breakthroughs on recog-
nizing the “universality and indivisibility” of human rights and the formal
call for a High Commissioner for Human Rights. And, as with the other
milestones realized at the conference in Vienna, it was NGOs, with women
NGOs in the lead, who pressed for according the topic of women’s rights
the full status of a human rights issue.31 As early as 1991, the Center for
Women’s Global Leadership, the Rutgers women’s NGO, launched what
would become known as the “Global Campaign for Women’s Human
Rights.” With violence against women as a focal point, the campaign would
assume a coordinated character, having human rights as a framework with
which to link the women’s struggle.32 Soon, it would become apparent to
the Rutgers Center that the World Conference, already decided upon by the
UN General Assembly in December 1990, should be the occasion that war-
ranted an all-out effort to connect women’s rights to human rights.
Meetings of women’s groups in various regions of the globe began taking
up the issue. At the 1992 conference on the environment in Rio de Janeiro,
women activists acquired the know-how on operating at UN-sponsored

meetings. The skill was reinforced in Latin America, where the Inter-American
Institute for Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica, offered intellectual and
organizational leadership training, along with financial resources. Initial
planning was further advanced at the regional preparatory meetings before
Vienna. These meetings were preceded by NGO regional conferences at
which women’s groups could urge government representatives that women’s
rights should be placed on the agenda for the conference in Vienna. The
Asian NGO Forum, preceding the Bangkok preparatory meeting, was espe-
cially noteworthy in revealing the intellectual and emotional gulf between
NGOs and governmental representatives on women’s issues. The NGO dec-
laration in Bangkok stressed that “women’s rights are human rights” and
that “crimes against women are crimes against humanity.” Such strong lan-
guage was missing from the regional intergovernmental document. Later,
the equation would be adopted at the NGO Forum in Vienna.
At the Vienna World Conference, a genuine watershed was reached on
focusing international attention on women’s rights. Charlotte Bunch, joined
by Florence Butegwa of Uganda, would present the following statement to
the World Conference that constituted a ringing declaration:
Abuses of women have too long been dismissed as private, family, cultural or
religious matters. Today, we demand that they be seen for what they are: fun-
damental violations of the “right to life, liberty and security of the person,” as
guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.33
Bunch and her associates were to prevail, a striking demonstration of the

newfound power of women’s NGOs, supported by NGOs in general. Rarely
before were women’s groups so visible on specifically women’s human rights
issues. The reasons were not hidden. Of the total number of 2,721 NGOs in
attendance at the NGO Forum, 49.4 percent came from women NGOs.34 A
large double room was set up in the NGO area of the conference center,
called “The Rights Place for Women.” The women brought with them hun-
dreds of thousands of signed petitions that they were to present to govern-
mental representatives at the later conference.
Greatly reinforcing the highly visible participation was a well-organized,
professionally-staffed media campaign that was located right next to the
double room headquarters. A team from the Center for Women’s Global
Leadership and the so-called Communications Consortium Media Center
briefed reporters on their issues and made available to them diverse expert
voices. In advance of the conference, the team prepared and distributed three
thousand sophisticated press kits with background fact sheets on thirteen key
women’s rights issues, and sent press releases to some 3,400 U.S. reporters
and 1,200 editorial page editors. During the World Conference, profes-
sional women journalists arranged for numerous interviews and press releases
of specific interest to women. The impact was enormous. More than one
thousand stories in the U.S. press during June 1993 referred specifically to
women’s rights topics.
The “defining moment” of the phenomenal women’s NGO campaign in
Vienna, according to Bunch, came at the so-called Global Tribunal on
Violations of Women’s Human Rights.35 It was “theatre” rather than a for-
mal courtroom procedure, and the dramatic impact was powerful. For an
entire day, thirty-three women offered what turned out to be “riveting per-
sonal testimony” about the abuses they had suffered. The abuses fell into five
categories: human rights abuse in the family, war crimes against women, vio-
lations of women’s bodily integrity, socioeconomic violations of women’s
human rights, and gender-based political persecution and discrimination.36
The staging included four “judges” who were knowledgeable officials from
the UN and human rights groups. They ruled that the outcry of the wit-
nesses must be “investigated and sanctioned, and the violations of their
human rights must be redressed.”
The tribunal was an outgrowth of the petition drive conducted by women
NGOs at the various regional NGO hearings in preparation for the World
Conference. Its aim was to demonstrate “the failure of existing human rights
mechanisms to promote and protect the human rights of women.”37 Bunch
pointed to the “rapt attention” of the audience to conclude as follows:
The Tribunal marked an official end to the centuries-old cover-up of these

atrocities and it awakened many women and men to the international commu-
nity’s responsibility to protect women from such abuse.38
Supported by two hundred and seventy thousand signatures from a massive

petition drive started in April, the activists, who were quite impressively organ-
ized, helped achieve the aim of making women’s rights issues highly visible.
Violence against women was specifically condemned for the first time in
an international document—the Vienna Declaration and Programme of
Action. Violence against women in armed conflict situations was defined as
a violation of human rights and of humanitarian laws. Women’s rights were
held to be integral to the universality of human rights. While the Vienna con-
ference established the intimate equation of women’s rights and human
rights, it did not initially sit too well with the Ford Foundation. Berresford
recalled that those at the foundation “running” the human rights program
may “have felt that women’s rights issues had legitimacy,” but, at the same
time, such issues did not belong under the human rights banner, as that ban-
ner was “non-gender specific.” Others took an opposite view and it became
“quite an argument.” Ultimately, she concluded the side that argued that “it
all ought to be the same set of issues, part of the same concept” prevailed.
Indeed, on the action level, the Vienna Conference called for women’s
rights to be integrated into all UN human rights activities. In this context,
the conference proposed that the UN Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979, be
strengthened with an optional protocol for individual petitions. The impact
of women NGO pressure upon the Vienna meeting was felt shortly afterward
in UN bodies. In December 1993, the General Assembly adopted a formal
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The declara-
tion, in effect, was an extension of CEDAW, which never mentioned violence
against women. Of greater significance was the decision taken at the UN
Commission on Human Rights in 1994 to appoint a Special Rapporteur on
Violence Against Women. Bunch was correct in observing, “few social move-
ments have registered as great an impact in so short of time—and with such
remarkably peaceful methods.”39
A second activist at Vienna was Felice Gaer, who had been a professional
staffer at the Ford Foundation during the late seventies. She was serving at
the World Conference as a member of the U.S. delegation, but, at the same
time, she was helpful in advising, informally, key women NGOs on the polit-
ical situation in various delegations. That the subject of women’s rights,
however, would resonate loudly in Gaer’s myriad general rights activities
afterward was certain, particularly as events moved from Vienna to the
Beijing conference in the fall of 1995. Beginning in March 1994, at meetings
of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, where Gaer also served on
the U.S. delegation, she saw herself as “a watchdog on the [commission’s]
resolutions,” making certain they included “concern over violence against
women.”40 She urged the State Department to broaden the scope of strategy
planning for the Beijing meeting to encompass the theme of violence against
women. At the same time, Gaer helped create a special lobbying group in
Washington—the Washington Working Group on the Human Rights of
Women—the key persons of which were Lea Browning of the American Bar
Association and Anne Goldstein of Georgetown University.41 This group,
together with Bunch’s center, Gaer wrote, “were to play the central role in
keeping pressure” on Western governments as Beijing approached.
An initial focus of the emerging Washington group was a document pro-
duced by the Economic Commission of Europe (ECE). It was designed
for the European regional preparatory meeting, scheduled for Vienna in
October 1994. That, along with other regional meetings, would culminate
in the worldwide conference in Beijing. Not unnaturally, the document car-
ried an economic frame of reference with attention concentrated upon
women’s economic empowerment. Women’s rights activists in Washington
were shocked by the failure of the ECE report to deal meaningfully with the
broad gamut of discrimination and violence against women. A detailed blis-
tering critique in which Gaer was involved was prepared that sought to alert
the State Department to the need for protecting the achievements of the
conference in Vienna and building upon them for Beijing.42
Inadequacy of the ECE document was but one concern of women
activists. There was also a growing fear that a number of countries were seek-
ing to weaken or undermine the Vienna achievement of integrating women’s
rights into the UN human rights system.43 According to Bunch, China was a
“silent partner” in these downgrading initiatives.44 Indeed, at the March
1995 session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, China effectively
prevented the adoption of language in a resolution that specifically called for

the human rights of women to be on the agenda of the Beijing conference.
A reflection of the Beijing reversal tendencies was the emergence of initia-
tives to restrict NGO participation. The UN secretariat had decided not to
recommend 493 NGOs that had formally applied for NGO status at the
Beijing conference. At this point, a coalition of twenty-four NGOs—
women’s groups and general human rights groups—signed a letter dated
January 9, 1995, and sent it to U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher,
urging that the State Department “use its influence publicly and privately” to
intervene with the Chinese government and the UN to ensure that they
adhere strictly “to established rules.”45 These rules would permit all NGOs
that met the standard UN criteria to be allowed to attend the NGO Forum
that was scheduled to be held prior to the Beijing Conference. And such
rules also required the host government—China—to issue visas to all accred-
ited participants. The joint letter was drafted by Felice Gaer.46 The United
States and the West were effective in realizing greater “transparency” and in
enlarging, to a considerable extent, NGO accreditation.
To preclude the threat of possible Chinese government repression, which
had even penetrated into the draft Beijing Platform for Action, NGOs chose
to urge UN High Commissioner Ayala Lasso to address the issue, as if he
were the UN’s formal defender of established norms. On July 16, 1995,
Gaer and the head of the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic
at City University, Rhonda Copelon, sent him a detailed fax outlining ten
major principles and commitments on the human rights of women adopted
at the conference in Vienna that they held were undermined by formulations
in the draft Beijing Platform for Action.47 The fax stressed his “responsibility
under the [Vienna] mandate” to act to preserve the prevailing norms. He
did follow through, which prompted Copelon and Gaer to write to him on
August 18, congratulating him on his “authoritative and compelling cri-
tique” of the draft Platform for Action that already had had a salutary
effect.48 Especially emphasized in the letter to Ayala Lasso was the fact that
his stress “on the priority of human rights over religious and cultural claims
to the contrary” was of “particular importance” for the Beijing conference.
Opposition to the integration of women’s rights with human rights came
from regimes of Asia and Africa that had argued that particular religious and
cultural patterns limited or transcended general human rights.
By the time the Beijing Conference opened in September 1995, women’s
rights NGOs, supported by general human rights NGOs, had laid the
groundwork for moving beyond Vienna to a new plateau, in the sense of
concretizing a section of the final Vienna statement that read, “the human
rights of women are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of human
rights.” The NGO movement was now to impose its own much simplified
formulation as the prevailing theme that “women’s rights are human
rights”—period. A well-organized campaign had pressed the United States
to assume a major leadership role in the West and throughout the world.
Women turned out to be remarkably effective as part of delegations from the

Third World.
At the largest women’s and NGO conference ever and with emotions
already at an exultant level, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as head of the American
delegation, would electrify the huge audience with a powerful speech that
demanded, “it is time for us to break our silence . . . to say here in Beijing . . .
that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from
human rights.”49 The First Lady brought the audience to their feet as she
orated, in a mantra-like style, that each of the following was a violation of
human rights: “when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated . . .
because they are born girls”; “when women and girls are sold into the slav-
ery of prostitution”; “when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and
burned to death because their marriage dowries are too small.” The list went
on in this dramatic fashion to include individual rape and mass rape in mili-
tary conflict, domestic violence against women, genital mutilation, forced
abortion, and forced sterilization. To everyone, she drove home the principal
message that she thought would emerge from Beijing: “human rights are
women’s rights . . . and women’s rights are human rights.”50
It was a moment of unparalleled excitement, as recorded by Gaer. Hillary
Clinton, in her recently-published autobiography, observed that, at the time
of her address, she did not realize the extraordinary impact it exerted: “What
I didn’t know at the time was that my twenty-one minute speech would
become a manifesto for women all over the world.”51 Later, however, she
had come to realize its significance. Wherever she stopped during her travels
abroad in subsequent years, foreign women would come up to her, she said,
“quoting words from the Beijing speech or clutching copies they [wanted]
her to autograph.” Obviously, the communist rulers in China recognized its
importance. They had blacked out her speech from the closed-circuit TV in
the conference hall that had broadcast highlights of the proceedings.
For the women’s rights movement, Beijing would reach a milestone in
UN and world history. Even as Gaer chronicled the history of that move-
ment, she privately would convey to a colleague that she “was heavily
involved all the way through” Beijing on a variety of matters, including such
“specific issues” as religion, language, universality, and inheritance.52 On the
one hand, she served in a crucial advisory capacity to the vice-chairman of
the U.S. delegation, Geraldine Ferraro. On the other, she met frequently
with NGOs, offering information, suggestions, assistance, and recommenda-
tions. She was functioning on two separate but interrelated tracks at the con-
ference in Beijing. No one else did or could have performed such a role.
Vienna was but one step in the determination by the foundation to have
Beijing be a turning point in the history of women’s rights. As early as 1993,
at the very time that the Vienna conference was being held, the Women’s
Program Forum, the key coordinating agency of the foundation on women,
was given the huge sum of nine hundred thousand dollars “to support a
world-wide grant making program” with respect to the forthcoming Beijing
Conference.53 The initial grant was designed to provide support for strength-
ening the infrastructure of the Fourth World Conference on Women and its
NGO Forum. The foundation report, written by its consultant, Rebecca
Nichols, may not have indicated how the funds would be used to strengthen
the conference infrastructure. At the same time, however, the extensive
grants, it was noted, would be used “to facilitate the participation of devel-
oping countries and grassroots women and women’s organizations in regional
and world-wide preparatory activities and to enhance related media and
communication activities.”54 In doing so, it was evident that the NGO
Forum infrastructure would be, of course, positively affected.
But the initial grant was only the beginning. In order to reinforce the
broad-scale efforts across the entire structure of the foundation in prepara-
tion for the Beijing conference, the Women’s Program Forum arranged for
an allocation of nine hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars to service
both the New York–based and the various regional office programs. Clearly,
Beijing was to be a priority concern of the foundation, and in order to
enhance the visibility of that priority, the foundation extended “a series of
grants” in order to “advance media communications and information pro-
grams worldwide.”55 Travel support to Beijing and the preparatory meetings
remained a crucial goal.
A vast initiative was anticipated by the Women’s Program Forum that
would be embraced by the grant-making. Linkages would be established with
the various departments of the foundation, with the regional offices and
with a variety of separate agencies involved. Information and planning ses-
sions with Beijing at various intervals would be prepared in advance, and
materials selected for NGO guidance would be accumulated and shipped out
or distributed at meetings. The Forum established, within its own midst, a
subcommittee, called the 1995 Conference Planning Group, to assist in
defining programming directions and in reviewing specific grant possibilities.
A gifted consultant, Rebecca Nichols, was hired to assist in coordinating the
heavy workload. Later, she would prepare the basic report of the foundation
and its Women’s Forum.
Of central importance in the preparation for the Fourth World Conference
on Women was the production of an edited volume, The Challenge of Local
Feminisms; Women’s Movement in Global Perspective, which was to serve as a
history of individual women’s movements in seventeen countries and regions.
It was to constitute a key programmatic document suggesting goals and
guidelines for the women’s movement generally. If it was to be published in
time for the conference, a complex consultative process was set up that
would result in substantive discussions at the Beijing conference itself.56
Nothing was neglected. Staffers of the Women’s Forum hosted preconfer-
ence luncheons at which potential donors met with the UN’s director of the
conference, Gertrude Mongella. Other foundations with interest in women’s
issues, like the Carnegie Corporation, were brought into this grant-making
operation. A key aspect of the process was the critical involvement of the
foundation’s full-time Beijing office. Consultations were frequent and, of

course, essential. A consultant to that office served as a central player—Lisa
Stearns. The Beijing office had to coordinate logistical arrangements for an
extraordinarily complex operation. Especially important was its role in assist-
ing the foundation’s major staffers in arriving in Beijing and in establishing
essential communication with delegates from governments and with non-
governmental representatives. A fairly large foundation staff was represented
at the Beijing Conference and its Forum. Twenty-five staff members and con-
sultants came from foundation headquarters in New York and from eleven
field offices.
That the costs would balloon was hardly unexpected. All told, the founda-
tion contributed nearly five million dollars to Beijing-related programs,
according to an official report of the Women’s Program Forum.57 The break-
down in expenditures was not included in the report, but judging from the
size of the attendance at Beijing, the travel grants for attendees must have
been quite large. According to the official Women’s Forum report, Beijing
“added up to the largest UN conference ever convened.” Over forty thou-
sand participants was the figure used in the report.58 But that applied to the
entire Beijing set of meetings. UN estimates placed the number participating
in the intergovernmental conference at seventeen thousand, which included
UN officials and approximately three thousand NGO representatives accred-
ited as observers. On the other hand, the NGO Forum, held at Huairou, a
distant suburb of Beijing, involved about thirty thousand participants, which
was twice the number who attended the previous UN women’s conference
in Nairobi. Actually, this total could have much been higher, by at least fif-
teen thousand, were it not for obstacles created by the Chinese government
in the granting of visas on a timely basis to those seeking to attend.
The greatest obstacle was the Chinese government’s decision to situate
the NGO Forum at Huairou, about sixty kilometers, or forty miles, away
from Beijing. The distance was made worse by the serious transport defi-
ciencies between this suburb and Beijing. All previous UN conferences that
had closely involved NGOs were situated within a short distance from the
main conference. The closeness led to a synergistic relationship between the
two and, therefore, to a successful outcome of the entire conference and
especially of the intergovernmental meeting. The very successful human rights
conference in Vienna was strongly indebted to the preceding NGO forum
that had met close by. Besides, the Huairou site was an utterly uncomfortable
one, with a lack of adequate facilities as well as poor accessibility for disabled
or elderly persons. It was not surprising that once the intergovernmental
conference began, many of the more experienced NGO representatives were
drawn away from the NGO Forum. The others felt blocked from attending.
But this may have been the very purpose of the Chinese communist
regime when it announced in March 1995 that the NGO meeting site had
been shifted to Huairou. The decision came on the heels of an unfortu-
nate episode in Copenhagen involving the Chinese Premier, Li Peng. He was
attending a UN-sponsored conference on social development near the con-

ference site, when he came face-to-face with NGO demonstrators who were
engaged in a hunger strike. In one NGO newspaper displayed nearby, he
could see a picture of himself with a caption reminding readers of his role in
the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of students. Might such an incident
take place in Beijing by women activists?59 Other incidents had also dis-
turbed the Chinese leader. At a meeting of the UN Commission on Human
Rights in Geneva in February 1995, a resolution calling for an investigation
of human rights violations by China was almost successful; it failed by only
one vote. Earlier, negotiations in December 1994 for China to become a
member of the World Trade Organization did not go well. In addition, the
characteristic totalitarian reaction to the possibility of social instability must
have inclined the leadership to move the NGO Forum to an isolated place.
This was not the only reaction. Chinese security forces harassed some partic-
ipants in the NGO Forum and, at times, even members of official foreign
delegations at the Beijing conference.
Still, in the formal report of the Women’s Program Forum in evaluating
the NGO meeting at Huairou, which ran from August 30 through September
8, 1995, “it was judged a success overall.”60 This resulted, said the report,
from “the spirit, diversity and commitment of its multitude of participants.”
A special foundation report on the reaction of Chinese women’s groups
recorded an unusually positive response. “For Chinese women in the fore-
front of the Chinese women’s movement, the images, energy and language
of the NGO Forum,” it observed, had acted “as a catalyst for a small but
influential community of Chinese women.”61 The report went on to say, “a
wider group has been mobilized to ask new questions and still others have
become curious enough to listen to new ideas.” If these judgments applied
to a group almost totally ignorant of the women’s movement throughout the
world, including Asia, how much more was this to be characteristic of
the impact upon the women’s movement in the rest of the world?
The intergovernmental Beijing Conference began on September 4, while
the NGO Forum was still in session, and would run until September 15. The
impact on the delegates of the efforts undertaken by the Ford Foundation,
its grantees, and their allies could be found in the Beijing Declaration
adopted by the conference.62 The governments committed themselves
to ensuring the “equal rights and inherent dignity of women and men,” to
guaranteeing “the full implementation of human rights of women and of the
girl child,” and to providing for “the empowerment and advancement of
women.” The declaration went on to declare that “women’s empowerment”
meant their “full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of soci-
ety, including participation in the decision-making process and access to
power.” Then, after declaring that “women’s rights are human rights,” the
declaration went on to assert that “equal responsibilities” of men and women
are essential to maintain a “harmonious partnership” for the family. Two
essential points that had been underscored by the foundation followed:
“eradication of poverty based on sustained economic growth” required “the
involvement of women” at all levels; and there had to be “explicit reception

and reaffirmation of the right of all women to control all aspects of their
health, in particular their own fertility” as “basic to their empowerment.”
Four major elements of the foundation’s programming were emphasized
and incorporated in the document: the promotion of women’s economic
independence, including employment, and eradication of the persistent and
increasing burden of poverty on women; the prevention and elimination of
all forms of violence against women and girls; the assurance of equal access
to and equal treatment of women and men in education and healthcare; and
the enhancement of women’s sexual and reproductive health as well as edu-
cation. The subsequent “Platform for Action” in the huge UN document,
numbering 179 pages, goes into considerable detail on all facets of women’s
rights and in opposing gender violence. It was an extraordinarily impressive
document, with fingerprints of the foundation’s Women’s Program Forum
easily recognized on virtually every page. And the designer of those finger-
prints was a vice-president of the organization who would take over as presi-
dent of the foundation the next year, Susan Berresford. In a recent interview,
she refused to claim credit for herself or her associates, but she nonetheless
acknowledged, in a modest manner, that she and the foundation had been
very much involved:
I don’t think the Foundation ever claims a victory; its not our victory, but I
think we back the right people, we walked along with the [women’s] move-
ment and helped support it.63
Berresford went on to explain, “[the foundation] has a wonderful record of

supporting social movements,” and when the women’s movement “ignited
around the world, [it] was not because [the foundation was] funding it”;
rather, it was because “people woke up with new ideas” and the foundation
welcomed the opportunity of funding those ideas. Speaking about the women’s
rights leaders, who were, she said, “wonderful people,” Berresford specu-
lated, “I think they would have had their voices heard anyway.” But then
frankness entered into her comments: “But I think it made a difference that
there was a funder ready to back them. And we stuck with the [women’s]
organizations and people for a long time.”
Even as she disassociated herself from the achievements at the conference
in Beijing, Berresford acknowledged the role of her predecessor, Franklin
Thomas, in the conference’s preparations and achievement. He had been the
foundation’s president prior to and at the time of Beijing.64 It was Thomas,
she insisted, who had made women’s rights issues a priority concern of the
foundation. At the same time, she recalled that she had been Thomas’s “right
hand.” Early on, she noted her own role and the work of some of her women
associates in affecting his attitude from the beginning:
When Frank Thomas became the president in 1979 . . . a group of us who

worked internationally and nationally here, got together over the summer
before he came in the fall, and wrote a paper to him proposing that he double
the size of the women’s program around the world, overseas and domestically,
and it was the first staff initiative he received, the first day he was here, and we
came and put it on his desk, and said, “this is what we think you should do.”65
The foundation did not consider the Beijing Declaration and Plan of
Action to be the only objectives it had in mind. After all, the Conference was
occurring in a major totalitarian regime when the language of women’s
rights was virtually unknown. Besides, the foundation operated a specific
office in Beijing, a rarity for philanthropic organizations. Might it not be
appropriate to utilize its facility to impact a society in which the subject of
human rights was regarded with indifference, if not disdain, by the totalitar-
ian regime? Indeed, the foundation sought to use its heavy involvement in
Beijing to exert its limited leverage to achieve modest successes. The effort
had not been inexpensive. In 1993, the foundation had approved a special
project (FAP—Foundation Approved Project) costing three hundred thou-
sand dollars for use by its China office. The amount would be supplemented
by a grant of ninety thousand dollars in January 1995, and by an additional
twenty-five thousand dollars the following year. The funding enabled the
Beijing office to engage an international consultant with a Chinese assistant.
How the project functioned and how the significant, if modest, results were
achieved were described in a special and fascinating report by the consultant,
Lisa Stearns.66
The report made explicitly clear in its “précis” that the funds were “ear-
marked” for “the support of Chinese activities related” to the Beijing
Conference, with “special emphasis on preparations for and follow-up to the
NGO Forum.”67 At the same time, the consultant’s specific functions were
outlined. She was to strengthen the ability of new Chinese women’s organi-
zations to build coalitions locally, regionally, and internationally. She was also
to assist the official All Chinese Women’s Federation (ACWF) in developing
a familiarity with the goals of the international women’s movement. While
pursuing this function, she was also to seek to enhance foreign understand-
ing about women’s activities in China.
Significantly, the foundation proposal was “crafted” by its “reproductive
health program officer between March and June 1993. This was hardly sur-
prising, as the two preceding years were characterized by “innovative pro-
gramming in the reproductive health area.” A “first women’s hotline” was
created and expanded, a “network” of women’s groups interested in health
issues was consolidated, and a special fund was set up by the China office for
projects on women’s studies and initiatives. What needed not be recorded in
the report was that the broadening of its initial scope beyond reproductive
health might have brought into play security and political concerns of the
Chinese regime. Indeed, the report noted that “political uncertainty col-
ored” the work of the Beijing office.68
Nonetheless, the early initiative seemed to pay off. By the end of 1994,
according to Stearns’ report, the foundation’s efforts had “resulted” in “a
growing number of colleagues” inside ACWF who had become “excited

about, rather than threatened by the process of taking part in a global move-
ment.”69 The report concluded that the China office had played “a signifi-
cant role” in enlarging the community of Chinese women in preparing for
the NGO Forum. Especially important was its work in arranging for “net-
working,” which was said to be a “centrifugal force on women’s lives.” Such
networking on a regional level as part of the preparation for the NGO Forum
exerted “a powerful impact on Chinese participants,” as other previous
Chinese women’s contact for “official meetings” had been “highly rou-
tinized.” Once the NGO Forum began, the impact was all the greater, as the
“open and energetic process of NGO advocacy” proved to be “particularly
eye opening.” While the official Chinese body ACWF “reinforced” stereo-
types of “communist uniformity” during the preparation period of 1993–95,
the ACWF nonetheless “internally absorbed many lessons” during the two
years with respect to the “informality and flexibility of international NGOs.”
Regrettably, no examples were offered on how this supposedly affected the
ACWF “internally.”
Still, the China office consultant sought to obtain a modest level of
encouraging comments from Chinese participants that were then included in
a foundation-coordinated book, “Reflections and Resonance.”70 It was pub-
lished in both Chinese and English and carried the essays of sixty-two
Chinese women who traveled with the foundation-organized groups to
attend the international preparatory activities associated with the Beijing
Conference. That the book received warm comments from various women
participants from different countries is apparent from the report of the
China office.
Of particular importance to the China office was the need to harness the
media to serve the goals of the women participants. A particular technique
was used for this purpose with reference to Chinese women participants.
It so happened that in March 1995, the University of Iowa School of
Journalism and Mass Communications convened a special program geared
to the forthcoming Beijing Conference. It was entitled, “World Women and
Media Workshop.” The foundation contributed to the funding of eight
Chinese women journalists to attend the Iowa media program. If the results
were not too encouraging for achieving an open-mindedness, at the same
time, a modest positive achievement was registered at a small-group gather-
ing of the Chinese journalists. One participant was quoted as saying, “when
the session ended we didn’t eradicate our cultural differences, but everyone
came away with a greater understanding of just how wide the cultural chasm
can be.”71 According to the China office consultant, a solid final result
emerged from the various preconference travels coordinated by the foun-
dation, which involved various foreign women groups, including Chinese
women. The networking produced nearly one hundred Chinese women
“who [identified] themselves as part of a special network. Many of them
[were] at the center of building a new women’s NGO community in China.”
The China office report was particularly intriguing with respect to a spe-
cial concern of the foundation—the plight of rural women everywhere. At
the NGO Forum, the subject received a modest degree of attention. But out-
side the Forum, the China office pursued the subject diligently, in hopes
of involving them. One way was related to the obtaining of rural credit. In
China, this took the form of a tapestry project involving three thousand
women from Chinese village groups in ten counties of four provinces. The
object of the project was to encourage empowerment through small enter-
prise development. While the tapestry project failed to win the support of vil-
lage authorities and no village women involved in the project were permitted
to participate directly in the NGO Forum, the tapestries were nonetheless
exhibited in Beijing, and a book based on the tapestries was “widely distrib-
uted” during the conference.”72
In the end, the key question for the China office and the foundation’s spe-
cial focus was—at a minimum—did the ACWF reach “a more tolerant under-
standing of NGO activism and the value of diversity?” The consultant,
sounding out various colleagues, found “widespread, if not unanimous
agreement that since 1993 many ACWF cadres, including some in leadership
positions,” did precisely that. One small test was offered: Professor Wu Qing,
who was identified as a founding member of the Foreign Languages University
Women Studies Forum, in 1990, at the very first Sino-American Women’s
Conference, had been refused by the ACWF the right to attend. In sharp
contrast, in March 1996, Professor Wu Qing was seated at the main table
at the AWCF celebration, and she has had “regular access to AWCF activi-
ties” since.73
A second example cited involved Professor Li Xiaojiang of Zhengzhou
University, who was described “as a pathbreaker in the development of
Chinese women’s studies” over the previous decade. During the preparatory
period before the Forum and the conference, she was “personally harassed,”
which prompted her to boycott the NGO Forum. She then explained her
refusal to attend in a letter that contended, “being a Chinese woman means
that I have no alternative but to keep silent when I have to make a choice
between the State and Women.”74 Her courageous letter was widely circu-
lated, and she was not silenced by state repression.
So far as the China office was concerned, its success should be measured
not by what occurred before and during the NGO Forum, but rather by
the activities supported by the office that “contributed to a momentum of
activism that [would] survive.”75 The answer was a positive one. The Chinese
women who did play an active role at the conference in Beijing were enthu-
siastic, basing their optimism upon three considerations: the NGO Forum
provided “something of a catharsis of vindication,” they felt “less alone now
with the values they [cared] about . . . and the ideas they [were] developing,”
and the very act of being with so many women and “understanding their
concerns and mission was worth it all.” This optimism could not easily be
challenged.
Chapter 12
A St u m b l e a n d St r i d e s Fo rwa rd
W ith the huge international human rights achievements in the last quarter
of the twentieth century, the foundation was set to assume even greater
responsibility in the twenty-first century. Its investment portfolio in 2004 was
valued at $10.5 billion.1 The next year, the assets were valued at $11.5 bil-
lion, exceeded only by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among the
one hundred top U.S. foundations (the Gates foundation totaled $28.8 bil-
lion in assets2). When the category of grant making focuses on Human Rights/
Civil Liberties, the Ford Foundation exceeds all others by a geometric
dimension. In 2004, the total amount of Ford Foundation grants was $59.2
million, and its closest competitor extended grants totaling $4.6 million.3
The major international NGOs supported by the Ford Foundation are still
flourishing. Human Rights Watch’s reports, press releases, and comments by
its leaders are cited frequently in the leading media sources, like the New York
Times, s sometimes as often as everyday or every other day. This Pygmalion
NGO, created by the foundation itself, has been awarded, since 1991, a total
of $15,519,000 through thirty-five grants (between 1978 and 1989, the
HRW predecessors and divisions received eight grants totaling three million
dollars4). Its close competitor, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers
Committee for Human Rights) received, since 1987, nearly $15.4 million.
The Boston-based NGO, Physicians for Human Rights, received nearly five
million dollars.
But even with the positive achievements of the international human rights
NGOs, not every initiative of the foundation has gone well. Indeed, it stum-
bled badly in dealing with the NGO Forum of the World Conference Against
Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Religious Intolerance (WCAR),
held in Durban, South Africa, in late August 2001. Sponsored by the UN
and strongly supported by the Ford Foundation, it resembled in no way the
latter’s earlier accomplishments. Durban turned out to be a propagator of
vulgar anti-Semitism. Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and voice
of Holocaust victims, called Durban “a moral catastrophe” characterized by
“wholly unadulterated hate and cruelty.”5
WCAR, adopted in a General Assembly resolution in December 1997, of
course, was not the first time the UN would attempt to deal with a central
evil of the contemporary world. Similar world conferences on racism, under

UN auspices, had taken place in 1978 and 1983. A major theme of those ear-
lier conferences was the elimination of the apartheid system in South Africa.
But a potent secondary theme that had bubbled up from Middle Eastern
political tensions, and which hardly related to racism, was a reiteration of the
infamous “Zionism equals racism” resolution of the UN General Assembly
in November 1975, as if its endless repetition would serve to alter the polit-
ical map of the Middle East. However, the very echoing of the “Zionism
equals racism” chant, while it may have invigorated hate-Israel campaigns
and, more dangerously, stirred up anti-Semitism in various places through-
out the world, only incensed the West.
Kofi Annan had openly denounced the equation of Zionism with racism,6
and, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights in 1998, only a short time after the World Conference on
racism was projected by the General Assembly, advised the future conference
participants “to denounce anti-Semitism in all of its manifestations.”7 The
UN Secretary-General was reinforced in this advice by a stunning and success-
ful effort by the United States and its democratic allies to achieve the extraor-
dinary repeal of the “Zionism equals racism” resolution by a vote of 111 to
twenty-five in the General Assembly on December 16, 1991.
A key foundation report of October 2001 disclosed that, in the year 2000,
twelve months before Durban, there was an already-strong foundation pre-
occupation with the planned World Conference. A livelink site was established
on the Internet that had much of the pertinent information of the confer-
ence, including position papers, calendars of events, a list of the foundation
grants toward the various processes of the conference, as well as “UN brief-
ing notes to assist Ford staff in their programming decisions in this process.”8
Certainly, foundation staffers were strategically placed to have sensed an
unfolding drama of distress. According to the foundation memorandum, no
less than forty staffers from the Ford Foundation were scheduled to attend
the World Conference Against Racism in Durban.9 How many participated
in the regional conferences and at the preparatory conferences in Geneva
was not specified. However, the “Closing Memorandum” noted that “vari-
ous program officers” of the foundation attended the regional meetings in
Santiago and Tehran. Besides, a foundation grant report of a “Foundation
Administered Project” (FAP) indicated that a one-hundred-thousand-dollar
grant was made on October 1, 2000, almost a year before Durban, that
would provide for information-sharing, networking, and the convening of
NGOs in preparation for the World Conference Against Racism.10
The NGO Forum ran from August 28 to September 1 and involved thou-
sands of participants. In the foundation’s “Closing Memorandum,” the total
number of “representatives” to the World Conference was noted to have
been “over 16,000,” but this number included government delegations, UN
employees, and NGOs.11 Obviously, the largest percentage of participants
came from the last category. The Forum was held in a cricket and soccer
A Stumble and Strides Forward 251
stadium—Kingsmead—in Durban, where white tents were set up for the

NGO sessions.
An extremely valuable summary of the bigotry that transpired at the
Forum was a detailed day-by-day account prepared by David Matas, a former
long-time prominent lay official of Amnesty International, who is an expert
immigration lawyer from Winnipeg, Canada. He was attending the Forum as
a representative of B’nai B’rith Canada. His following description of what
impacted the minds of Jewish NGOs upon their arrival at the NGO Forum
is startling:
On entry to the Forum grounds, every participant was accosted by virulent,

anti-Semitic slogans, pamphlets, slurs and chants. There was a steady stream of
incidents of people from the Jewish caucus being threatened, verbally abused
and harassed for no other reason than that they were Jewish. . . . The overall
impression and effect was to make anyone who was Jewish feel unwelcome and
unwanted.12
Especially stunning was the booth at the Forum of the Arab Lawyers Union
that handed out a large amount of anti-Semitic hate propaganda, including
cartoons portraying Jews with hooked noses, blood dripping from fangs,
with pots of money surrounding their victims. Equally frightening was a dis-
play at one of the Forum tents of copies of the “Protocols of the Elders of
Zion,”13 the notorious czarist forgery of the early twentieth century that
had enormously impressed Adolf Hitler and led to his ruling, once he took
power, that it be required reading for every member of the Hitler Youth. The
name Hitler entered the Forum in a special, if particularly distressing, way. A
popular flyer, widely distributed to NGOs, was a photograph of the Nazi
Fuehrer in which the question was asked, “What if he had won?” Below
the photograph came the answer: “no Israel and therefore no Palestinian
bloodshed.”14
Frequently and sometimes persistently, the virulent hate that spewed forth
at the Forum was of a character that transcended propaganda and took on a
directly threatening and intimidating form. Throughout the Forum sessions,
according to Matas, “almost consistently,” marches and chants of an anti-
Semitic nature took place, with participants shouting “Zionism is racism.”
Of even greater concern were the open threats of violence against Jewish par-
ticipants at the Forum. Matas listed them as follows: “You do not belong to
the human race,” “Chosen People? You are a cursed people,” and “Why
haven’t the Jews taken responsibility for killing Jesus?” At a rally on the for-
mal opening day, the poster carried the traumatizing language: “Hitler
should have finished the job.” At another rally, the extremists shouted
threats, like “Kill all the Jews.” “These sorts of comments,” wrote Matas,
“were incessant, endemic.”
An especially frightening episode came at the very beginning of the
Forum, but the target was not the international Jewish NGOs, but rather the
local Jewish community of Durban. It took the form of a rally against racism,
but turned into something else. The demonstrators chose as its target the
Durban Jewish Club, where they literally blocked its access while threatening
the occupants. The club, of course, had nothing to do with the Forum,
except for the demonized reality that its members were Jews. The Forum’s
ending resembled its beginning. When the Jewish caucus, in the face of
deepening threats, chose to leave the plenary, their walkout was accompa-
nied by hostile applause and shouts of “Get out of Palestine” and “Free
Palestine.”
So harsh was the taunting of Jewish participants that the head of one of
the most prominent non-Jewish NGOs, Catherine Fitzpatrick, felt shocked,
fearing for the safety of the Jews. She, at the time, was the head of the impor-
tant International League for Human Rights, having previously served as
research director of U.S. Helsinki Watch. Fitzpatrick was aware of bodily
threats posed by organized anti-Semites. She had for years covered the
repressive and dangerous public scene against dissidents and Jews in the
USSR. Now, while observing that she was “frankly frightened,” she wrote: “I
have never been in a situation at home or in any foreign country, where I lit-
erally felt I had to cover Jewish colleagues with my body and watch out lest
they be physically attacked.”15
Other non-Jewish individuals also could feel the atmosphere of hate. One
major American figure at the Forum who had played a key role in the ending
of apartheid in South Africa, Gay McDougall, related how the Jewish caucus
was the only “victim’s caucus” at the final plenary to have its proposal on
anti-Semitism challenged and eliminated.16 The caucus had submitted a sec-
tion to be included in the Forum’s declaration that would have denounced
attacks on synagogues and upon individual Jews anywhere that had been
motivated by anti-Zionism. McDougall concluded that the extraordinary
pressure under which Jewish delegates worked at Durban was “intimidating
and undemocratic.”
That the Forum’s draft declaration constituted a kind of epitome of anti-
Israel vehemence was certain. The proposed declaration denounced Israel for
“racism and apartheid and other racist crimes against humanity.” The Jewish
state was accused of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.” An “action program”
was called for that would set up an “international war crimes tribunal” to
which Israeli citizens would be brought and tried. In addition, an interna-
tional anti-Israeli apartheid movement would be launched that would bring
about “the total isolation of Israel” and “the full cessation of all links”
to Israel.17
It was at about four o’clock in the morning when the NGO Declaration
was approved. The Central and Eastern European caucus later issued a state-
ment denouncing the Forum’s vote on the declaration as “neither transpar-
ent nor democratic” as well as being “permeated with procedural violations.”
As for the declaration’s language on Palestine, it was found to be
“extremely intolerant, disrespectful and contrary to the very spirit of the
World Conference.”18 A statement from the European Roma Rights Center
was equally angry that the language of the declaration provided “the kind of
hatred and racism the Durban gathering was meant to challenge.” It went on
to “deplore the fact that the Forum was “apparently hijacked by biased
activists, who were promoting their own agenda.”19
Mary Robinson, the Secretary-General of the Forum, got the message.
She proceeded to reject the language of the NGO Forum in its concluding
declaration and refused to recommend its adoption by the World Conference.
Publicly, she declared, “It’s sad for me that for the first time I can’t recom-
mend to [government] delegates that they pay close attention to the NGO
Declaration.” Her concluding remarks were especially scornful: “I am aware
of and condemn those whose words and actions in Durban were themselves
intolerant, even racist.”20 But it remained for the sole survivor in the U.S.
Congress of Nazi rule in Europe, Tom Lantos, to have the final comment.
“For me, having experienced the horrors of the Holocaust first hand this
was the most sickening display of hate for Jews I had seen since the Nazi
period.”21 Lantos was co-chairman of the Human Rights Caucus of the con-
gress and recently became chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Though the Ford Foundation was heavily involved in the preparations of
the NGO Forum, as was indicated by the official “Closing Memorandum”
of October 16, 2001, strikingly, virtually nothing appears in that report about
the expressions of anti-Semitism and the outpouring of angry anti-Israel
tirades. And nothing was mentioned about how the Secretary-General
of the NGO Forum sharply rejected the NGO Declaration because of its
overt bigotry.
It was not only the official foundation document that had failed to regis-
ter the Forum realities on the radar screen of the organization; at least
one observer found it difficult to persuade a foundation staffer what ought
to be of concern. An activist, Judith Palkovitz, from the largest Jewish women’s
organization, Hadassah, serving as a delegate to the Forum, later recalled to
an interviewer the discussion she had had with an unnamed foundation
staffer. She “spotted” him at a session dealing with what she identified as
“African-American reparations issues.”22 Apparently asked by the interviewer
whether the staffer was aware of the display of bigotry, she commented,
“There was no way to miss the anti-Semitism. The Ford official would have
to be blind [for] it was the most anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist stuff you
ever saw.”
When the foundation president, Susan Berresford, was interviewed several
years after Durban and asked whether the foundation was lacking in “sensi-
tivity” regarding the anti-Jewish bigotry at the NGO Forum, she acknowl-
edged a sense of personal embarrassment: “I ask myself that . . . question a
lot,” she responded.23 The problem tormented her and it led her to repeat
the question in a particular way: “Why did this not appear earlier on the
screen?” Under ordinary circumstances, she implied, the traumatic events at
Durban would certainly have appeared on the foundation’s “screen.”
Apparently, the profound sense of anguish that Jewish participants experi-
enced at Durban was not unknown to Berresford. In her interview, she sug-
gested that she had received alternative views of what had transpired than
that articulated in the “Closing Memorandum.” The interview sug-

gested that she would have begun an investigation of the critical reports had
not a profoundly disturbing and overriding event intervened. In seeking to
ascertain how and why the horrors of anti-Semitism had dropped from
her and the foundation’s radar screen, she observed that “9/11 happened
right after the [Durban] meeting . . . and for many of us here in New York,
this was a devastating and destabilizing and shocking event.”24 She went on
to observe that “Durban sort of got trumped; people here knew people [in
the World
W Trade Center] who were killed; people here lived downtown and
couldn’t go home; we had a lot of difficult times, institutional trauma. . . .
And so I think people put Durban behind them.”
Berresford went on to say that it was not until two years after Durban that
she had begun to rethink and reexamine the initial perceptions about the
World Conference and particularly the NGO Forum. The result would be a
radical revision of the “Closing Memorandum” on the subject. And that
revision would produce a new sensitivity to bigotry and Middle Eastern ten-
sions. Of equal importance, the rethinking resulted in a fundamental policy
change with respect to foundation grants. Berresford’s courageous leader-
ship in producing these changes was especially impressive.
But before the changes would be introduced, the foundation would be
confronted by the challenge of sharply-posed data and information that
appeared mainly in the Anglo-Jewish press. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency
(JTA) is well-known in the Jewish world as a principal source of information.
Its Daily Bulletin provides Jewish organizations and leaders throughout the
world with up-to-date information pertinent to Jewish life. Two years after
Durban, the JTA hired a well-known author and investigator, Edwin Black,
to determine how those NGOs that had organized the anti-Jewish and anti-
Israel hate campaign had been funded. Following a two-month investigation,
Black wrote a series of articles that appeared in mid-October 2003. The
headlines of the articles could not fail to be embarrassing and disturbing:
“Ford Foundation Aided Groups Behind Biased Durban Parley” was the
stunning headline in the Anglo-Jewish journal, Forward, on October 17, and
“Anti-Israel Activists at Durban were Funded by Ford Foundation,” which
appeared in the JTA daily bulletin the same day.
Two foundation grantees were the principal targets of the Black investiga-
tion. The first was the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights
and the Environment that, publicly, was known by its acronym, LAW (the
letters of which came from its original name, Land and Water). The organi-
zation was reported to have received, since 1997, three grants from the foun-
dation totaling $1.1 million. Black noted—as had eyewitnesses, like David
Matas—that LAW officials “took leadership positions” on the Durban NGO
Forum steering committee. Especially significant was LAW’s sponsorship of
a preconference mission to the West Bank and Gaza designed for South
African delegates “to convince them that Israel was an apartheid state.”25
The attempt to paint Israel as an apartheid state was a major theme of the
anti-Israel groups at the NGO Forum. According to UN Watch, an NGO
based in Geneva and sponsored by the American Jewish Committee,

LAW “was instrumental in creating the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic focus
at Durban.”26 Black quoted a LAW official in Jerusalem as saying that “Ford
has made it possible for us to do much of our work.”27
The second major Palestinian group at Durban that Black found was largely
funded by the Ford Foundation was the so-called Palestine NGO Network,
a coalition of some ninety Palestinian groups with the acronym PNGO. It
played, according to the JTA investigator, a key role in the drafting of a res-
olution at the NGO Forum that called for the total isolation by the interna-
tional community of Israel “as an apartheid state.”28 One of the key officers
of the network, Allam Jarrar, a member of its small steering committee,
was quoted by Black as saying, “our biggest donations come, of course,
from Ford.”
Black’s disclosures prompted harsh comments by prominent Jewish lead-
ers. He quoted Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation
A
League (ADL), as saying, “It is not only a sad commentary on philanthropy
running amok, but outrageous and irresponsible.” Foxman added that the
foundation, by failing to provide “oversight and monitoring” of its grantees,
“wound up aiding and abetting extremists and political movements that
[bordered] on anti-Semitism.”
With the Anglo-Jewish weekly press throughout the United States carry-
ing lead articles from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the foundation’s
role at the Durban Conference, and with major Jewish organizations express-
ing dismay and criticism, it was hardly surprising that a strong reaction would
be invoked in congressional circles, especially among legislators from New
York. The American Jewish community had already been stirred to express
great concern and anger about anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist developments in
Durban during the fall of 2001 from reports of Jewish participants. That
concern significantly deepened with extensive reporting of a potent out-
break of anti-Semitism in Western Europe, especially in France, during
2001–2002.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York was the first to raise the issue.
Only a few days after the JTA articles appeared, Nadler, a liberal Democrat,
raised the question of a federal probe into the role of the Ford Foundation at
Durban. He and his colleagues in Congress had already been briefed by
Congressman Tom Lantos about the latter’s essay on the “debacle” at
Durban. He told the Anglo-Jewish newspaper, the Forward, that while the
Ford Foundation had the “right to fund groups critical of the Israeli govern-
ment,” it was “not right . . . to fund groups that [crossed] the line into anti-
Semitism or incitement to hatred against Israel.”29 He prepared a letter to
the Ford Foundation urging it to scrutinize how its funds were being used.
The Nadler letter was completed and signed by nineteen other con-
gressmen at the beginning of November 2003. Forwarded to President
Berresford of the Ford Foundation, the letter was a strong one, noting the
reports about the Durban conference, which it said constituted “a virtual
field day for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activities.” Also noted was the JTA
series showing that some of the Palestinian NGOs that had played a major
role in promoting “hate activities were funded by the Ford Foundation.”
Emphasized, too, were the JTA reports of how some Palestinian participants
at the Forum called for “the destruction of the State of Israel and engaged in
the promotion of violence.”30 The result was the Nadler-Berresford meeting,
which turned out to be quite positive. The congressman reported to JTA
that “we had a useful conversation” in which President Berresford “commit-
ted to me that the Ford Foundation [would] not fund groups that espouse
anti-Semitism, promote violence or deny the legitimacy of the State of
Israel.”31 The Nadler statement constituted a major breakthrough and sig-
nificantly cleared the air of noxious fears and threats. The clarification was
reinforced when the foundation vice-president of communication, Alex
Wilde, publicly declared, “we will not fund groups that promote anti-
Semitism or challenge Israel’s existence.”
Within days of the Nadler-Berresford meeting, the foundation took initial
steps to give effect to the commitment made to Nadler. Funding of LAW, a
leading organizer of the anti-Israel campaign at the NGO Forum at Durban,
was halted. The foundation, said Wilde, had formally notified LAW of this
decision and, at the same time, “[demanded] return of its unspent grant
funds.”32 A second action taken against LAW was directed at the group’s for-
mer executive director, Khader Shkirat. The foundation had awarded him a
grant of sixty thousand dollars in September 2001 to support his participation
in a human rights program at Harvard University. The grant was cancelled.
While LAW was the first to be specifically targeted by the foundation,
under its new policy, all foundation grantees would be required to certify that
they did not promote anti-Semitism or the destruction of any state. The
foundation’s vice-president, Wilde, emphasized, “[all future funding] will be
subject to our new and expanded world-wide program of grantee audits, our
continuing investigation into the events surrounding the Durban conference
and new grantee contract language that prohibits any organization receiving
Foundation funds from promoting or engaging in violence, terrorism, big-
otry or the destruction of any state.”
The Ford Foundation initiatives following the Nadler letter brought a
temporary halt to the drive for a congressional investigation. An editorial
in Jewish Week in New York on November 21, 2003, reflected the changed
attitude in much of the angry Jewish community. It commended the Ford
Foundation for doing “the right thing this week” when it “acknowledged its
harmful role” in providing funds to groups that had “turned the UN racism
conference in South Africa into a shameful display of Israel-bashing and out-
right anti-Semitism.”33 The prime mover of the issue, Congressman Nadler,
was pleased by the meeting with Berresford and the follow-up actions taken
by the foundation. His top aide was quoted by the JTA as saying that the
foundation “should be given a chance to correct their mistakes.” The same
favorable opinion was voiced by Foxman of the ADL. He held that the foun-
dation had “made commitments for change . . . [and] we should let that
go forward.”
Especially pertinent on this subject were the comments of Larry Cox, who
was a principal human rights officer at the foundation. What was and is essen-
tial, from his vantage point and as demonstrated in the following quote, was
the need to prepare the foundation grantees in advance in the event of
another NGO conference:34
I think we should spend more time especially with our Middle East grantees . . .
we should have spent more time talking with, preparing them, letting this
[hate] stuff come out earlier and saying how important we thought it was to
take a human rights principled position and not get involved in anything that
went beyond that.
Cox, with obvious strong personal regrets, observed, “we learned a lot of les-
sons from Durban as a Foundation.” He revealed that in fact, he and the
foundation, in advance of Durban, were “trying to certainly support efforts
to head off the Zionism is racism resolution, we were trying to support
efforts to not turn it into another debacle.” Obviously, the effort was not
great enough, and the next time, he emphasized, he and his colleagues would
be “much more careful about preparations with [their] grantees.”
The foundation’s human rights specialist registered a kind of contempt for
the leadership that dominated the Durban Forum. “In Durban you had a lot
of groups that nobody had ever seen before. They were much more “grass-
roots,” types much more from the global South, much more politicized,
angrier, very angry about everything.” It was in this context that Cox called
attention to one of the more extraordinary events of the NGO Forum—the
invitation extended to President Fidel Castro of Cuba to address the body,
and the massive cheering response to his speech. To the foundation human
rights expert, this was “the most disturbing thing.”
In evaluating how Durban developed into a tragedy for the human rights
movement, Cox would call attention to the responsibility of the UN admin-
istration. It “could have run a better show,” he concluded, pointing out that
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “was over its head”
in terms of maintaining proper and responsible decorum. The Forum became
“a failure insofar as that anti-Semitism and anti-Israel propaganda over-
whelmed everything else.”
Far more striking than the various initiatives to correct the blunders the
foundation had made at Durban was an undertaking that was totally unprece-
dented in foundation history, and that was consciously initiated without any
publicity. President Berresford began an inquiry into how and whether the
foundation ought to encourage and support initiatives to combat anti-
Semitism in the West, more specifically in the Unites States and especially in
Europe. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before by the founda-
tion. Indeed, references to anti-Semitism, specifically, are rare in foundation
archives. That the foundation, in its new focus on anti-Semitism, would
turn its attention to Europe was quite natural. During 2001–2004, a dismay-
ing upsurge of violent anti-Semitic incidents occurred throughout much of
Western Europe, especially in France, which contained the largest Jewish

community in that region.35 Much of the hate campaign was prompted by a
virulent anti-Israel outcropping among the Muslim communities in Europe,
especially in France, as well as in traditional extremist groups on the Right
and among Leftists who strongly opposed Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.
A recrudescence of the Fascist and Nazi mentality of the thirties was seen
as a real possibility.
Some five months after the foundation created the various means to
diminish the possibility of a repetition of the Durban events, Berresford and
her associates, on May 28, 2004, convened a conference in Brussels, Belgium,
that Berresford chaired and that was cosponsored by the European Foundation
Center and the King Baudouin Foundation. The conference was entitled
“Understanding and Combating Anti-Semitism in Europe with Special
Reference to France, Germany and Poland.” Invited to morning and after-
noon sessions on that day were twenty-eight persons drawn primarily from
the professional leadership of various European Jewish organizations, as
well as selected Jewish academics at European universities who specialized
in anti-Semitism.
Chairperson Berresford, at the beginning, explained the purpose of the
meeting: to assist the Ford Foundation and the other sponsoring founda-
tions from Europe to develop a strategic grant-making approach to pre-
venting the increase of anti-Semitism in Europe. She noted that the Brussels
meeting was but one of a number of conferences that the Ford Foundation
was organizing in several different settings in order to determine its own
forthcoming “priorities.” Not only was anti-Semitism—the issue to be
considered—a priority, but she also emphasized that halting it would consti-
tute “a long-term investment” for the foundation.
Beyond the Brussels meeting, Berresford had entered into several discus-
sions with ADL director Abraham Foxman. During an interview with the
author, Berresford frequently touched upon those meetings and how useful
they proved to be. Separately, Foxman was interviewed and he character-
ized their exchanges as “candid” and “respectful” of each other’s views, even
if they were not always in agreement. He was impressed by “her willingness
to look deep into herself.” Foxman went on to praise her leadership qualities.
Specifically, he added, Berresford was a “very strong leader,” which was
reflected in the steps she had undertaken to rectify within the Foundation
the damaged image of the Jewish community after Durban. In taking these
appropriate and correct steps, Foxman observed, she “stood her ground” in
the face of opposition from various quarters that were not described.
Foxman especially welcomed her new interest in combating anti-Semitism.
The cooperation of the two leaders resulted, according to Foxman, in work-
ing out a joint relationship to combat bigotry. The focus was upon ADL’s
public school program to oppose racial and ethnic prejudices, “A World of
Difference.” The foundation would actively cooperate in supporting this
widely used program.
***
An ADL press release on April 24, 2006, spelled out the new program for the
“development and delivery of anti-bias training and diversity education pro-
grams and services.” Berresford’s comments, as quoted in the release are
pertinent. After noting that ADL “is a leader in the fight against bigotry
and discrimination,” she went on to observe the new program’s “practical
approaches . . . to teach tolerance and promote diversity are more important
now than ever.”36
Several months before the Durban debacle, the foundation had projected
an unprecedented, massive program to deal with the world’s most pressing
human rights problem of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century—
transitional justice. The problem covered the spectrum of issues resulting
from the overthrowing of military dictatorships, authoritarian systems, and
totalitarian rule. How is accountability obtained for the many who were tor-
tured, brutalized, or killed during the prior regimes? How can a sense of
community be restored or established and reconciliation be achieved
between the victims or survivors and those who abetted the practitioners of
violence either by inactivity or by silence? And how is compensation to be
made to the victims and survivors for the horrors perpetrated upon them?
The problem had also embraced failed states or failing states where ethnic
and religious tensions had exercised profound repercussions. Dozens of
states, in virtually every geographical area, especially in Third World coun-
tries, were confronting these issues.
It was not a surprise that the Ford Foundation, under the imaginative
leadership of Susan Berresford, would take on this extraordinarily burden-
some responsibility. The formal grant establishing the International Center
for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) came on March 1, 2001. It took the form
of a “recommendation” from Anthony Romero, a top-level human rights
staffer who later became director of the ACLU, to President Berresford
requesting “approval” for the totally new NGO with an unprecedented
budget for one year of $6,208,900. Of this amount, the foundation
would contribute four million dollars, and over one million dollars would
be provided by other foundations—MacArthur, Hewlett, and Atlantic
Philanthropies.37 The hefty size of the budget for the new NGO was rare in
foundation annals. But equally rare was the “Foundation’s commitment” to
the center of fifteen million dollars over “the first five years.” The huge grant
sums testified to the faith Berresford and her associates had in its new cre-
ation and the significance of its expected role. (Just three months later, a high
official of the center told the New York Times that the five-year budget would
total twenty-six million dollars. A few months later, the official upped the fig-
ure to thirty million dollars.38)
Of particular significance was the language used in the “recommenda-
tion” in characterizing the role of the foundation in bringing into existence
the center. The grant was not for the specified work of a particular human
rights organization, but rather “to establish the International Center for
Transitional Justice.” The foundation had moved in an almost revolutionary
manner to establish from scratch a human rights NGO. There was, of course,
the precedent of the way the foundation helped launch the U.S. Helsinki
Watch, but that was done in an extremely modest and, initially, in a most
uncertain and exploratory way. In time, the Helsinki Watch, greatly enlarged,
would require and be granted sizable sums, but, at the beginning, the
response of the foundation was tentative and experimental.
The grant recommendation spelled out in broad terms what tasks the cen-
ter would embrace. In keeping with the discussions of the previous year as
well as the preliminary papers prepared by the foundation’s consultant,
Priscilla Hayner, the founding document emphasized what was to be the
“purpose” of the center.39 The center was to “assist” countries, including
governments and NGOs, to “respond to a legacy of human rights abuse” by
advancing “accountability” as well as taking account of “the needs of vic-
tims,” and to “help prevent” the repetition of such liabilities in the future. It
was a tall order for any organization to undertake, and, indeed, in a prelim-
inary report by Hayner, in October 1999, it was noted that the principal
human rights organizations in the human rights field were scarcely prepared
to undertake the complex set of obligations.40
As pertinent as the defined “purpose” of the center was how the founda-
tion envisaged the tasks that had to be undertaken by the center to cover the
range of activities required to fulfill what in essence was a multifaceted pur-
pose. The following five tasks were set forth: conduct a series of missions to
obtain appropriate information; embark upon a series of “strategic research”
objectives; engage in a crucial effort to build the capacity of local actors,
enabling them to become experts in the development and formulation of
transitional justice programs and their eventual implementation; engage
high-level “decision-makers” to aid in the process of capacity-building by
involving them through targeted retreats and seminars; and prepare to facil-
itate the process of networking by experts so as to maximize intellectual com-
munication among various organizations and individuals already involved in
some limited aspect of the process.
Even in the abstract, the center would hardly be viewed as less than a
monumental instrument. The first task of “conducting missions” was spelled
out in the grant proposal in a way demonstrating a vastness of the scope
entailed by any center inquiry. If they were to “provide general and compre-
hensive information,” at the same time, they would seek technical data with
respect to legislation and local institutions to enable the center to develop an
appropriate truth commission structure and permit it to implement its objec-
tives.41 The missions would also serve to “empower local actors” to eventu-
ally make “policy decisions.” Here, the center’s aim was made explicit:
transitional justice policy decisions would be carried out through “investiga-
tory missions,” inquiries that were “specially tailored” to fit the local coun-
try situation.
That Priscilla Hayner would be assigned at the very beginning of the cen-
ter’s operations to travel to a dozen countries that had emerged from tor-
menting and brutal conflicts was hardly unexpected. She had studied
intensively the value of truth and reconciliation commissions and how the
new societies should be prepared for the rebuilding process. Her traveling
companion, Peggy Hicks, who also served as general counsel of a leading
human rights group, the International Human Rights Group in Washington,
DC, would effectively summarize Hayner’s talents in being able to readily
recognize the key problems of a transitional society. She had, said Hicks, a
“dogged determination . . . [and] relentless focus,” enabling her to listen
carefully and to move forward.42
The rush of media attention to the new NGO, accompanied by several
interviews with its proposed leaders, was not altogether surprising. The New
York Times Magazine, late in 2001, carried a short article on the center enti-
tled, “The Year in Ideas,” as if the foundation’s creation captured the strik-
ing and distinctive feature of the entire year.43 As noted by the article, a
feature of the center was the truth commissions, which had been launched
that year, or were about to begin functioning, in nine countries—Nigeria,
Ghana, Sierra Leone, Peru, Panama, East Timor, the former Yugoslavia,
Bosnia, and South Korea. The article found that the commissions had “pro-
liferated” and “gone global.” And this was only the beginning of the
“global” operation. The increase was anticipated by the center staff. An offi-
cial of the center, Paul van Zyl, reported shortly after the foundation grant
was extended that the number of requests for the services of the center
“[had] been a deluge ever since.”44 By 2002, when a second grant of three
million dollars would be forthcoming from the foundation, the number of
countries seeking the services of the center had leaped from nine to fifteen.45
In the following year, 2003, the number of countries asking for assistance
again almost doubled, reaching twenty-nine and thereby tripling the original
number.46 And, appropriately enough, for the first time, the foundation
grant file, when designating the “geographic area of concern,” now specified
that it was “world wide.”
Actually, the planning of the center was being shaped by Berresford and
Anthony Romero well before March. A consultant to the foundation,
Priscilla Hayner, for some time, had been researching the field of “transi-
tional justice,” and had prepared a basic discussion paper on the subject after
interviewing over fifty specialists in the field.47 At the April 6 meeting, where
the foundation staff was joined by a host of outside experts, a rather sharp
debate emerged about a major facet of Hayner’s study that had focused upon
“truth commissions” as a key instrument of “transitional justice.”
According to a major participant at the April meeting, Alex Wilde, then a
vice-president of the foundation, this altogether positive view of truth com-
missions was challenged by advocates of the need for justice and court deci-
sions for both victims and society as a whole. Justice, the advocates argued,
could be obtained through legal proceedings in courts, not at disclosures
made at the hearings of truth commissions.48 Yet even this viewpoint, artic-
ulated at the time by Aryeh Neier, former head of Human Rights Watch
and later president of Open Society, was not advocated in a hostile fashion.
On the contrary, the theme of justice was posed in a manner that did not reject
the truth commission priority thesis. As reported by Wilde, the difference in
viewpoints was seen by the participants as one of emphasis. Truth commis-

sions would but complement judicial courts, not replace them. Justice could
and would still be pursued and, indeed, Alex Boraine, the former deputy
chief of the South African truth commission who chaired the April 6 meet-
ing, made it clear that “the truth commission” would be but “a part of tran-
sitional justice.”49
In fact, truth commissions stood at the very heart of the Hayner research.
A veritable catalogue of involvement by the foundation in such commissions
was specifically detailed by Hayner.50 Especially significant examples can be
noted here. The foundation awarded New York University Law School a grant
of one hundred thousand dollars to administer a project that would evaluate
and record lessons learned by the separate South African and Guatemalan
truth commissions. Project officials at the law school were to commission
staff members at various levels of the two truth mechanisms to prepare stud-
ies focusing on lessons learned from each. The separate essays were to be
assembled and kept in one place to provide an invaluable source work on
the subject.
Truth commissions were always of special interest to the foundation, even
if it did not always provide direct financial support of them. In South
Africa, the truth commission was not directly supported, but an NGO in
Johannesburg, the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation,
which was “centrally involved” in the establishment of the “commission”
and which monitored its proceedings, was provided foundation funding.
Also supported by the foundation was the center’s Transition and Reconcil-
iation Unit, which was engaged in the evaluation of the social and political
impact of the truth commission and in monitoring the implementation of the
commission’s recommendations. Also supported by the foundation was
the Institute for Democracy, created in 1988 to assist in the publication of
major excerpts of the truth commission’s report. The result was a widespread
reproduction of extraordinary proportions. In one case, it took the form of a
thirty-page supplement inserted into six hundred thousand copies of the
major independent newspapers of South Africa. An additional four hun-
dred thousand copies were printed and distributed in South African schools
and institutions.
Not surprisingly, the foundation remained keenly interested in the accu-
mulation of archived documentation for scholarly research purposes.
Funding of the archival accumulation in Argentina and Chile was high on the
priority objectives of the regional offices of the foundation. At the core of
such assistance was the belief that preserving memory was essential for
the ending of social conflicts and the preservation of society itself. Thus, the
foundation office in Moscow, several years after the USSR had disintegrated
in 1991, was determined to provide support for both the Memorial Society
and the Perm Gulag Museum to permanently memorialize the horrors of
Stalinism. This was initiated in 1998, and during the following years, the
foundation regional office in Moscow awarded a grant of sixty thousand
dollars to the Memorial Museum of the History of Political Repression.

Similar support was extended to the Guatemalan Truth Commission and to
the human rights office of the Archbishop of Guatemala for sponsorship of a
historical-memory project.
A major documentary grant of six hundred thousand dollars was awarded
by the foundation to a London film production company to produce “The
Terror and the Truth,” which was about the experience of seven countries
seeking truth, justice, and reconciliation after a transition from repressive
rule. The documentary was released in 1997. With respect specifically to
Chile, the foundation granted the University of Notre Dame in Indiana
sixty-five thousand dollars to translate into English the entire two volumes
of the Chilean truth commission report. Earlier, in 1990, the foundation
awarded one hundred fifty thousand dollars to the Vicariate of the Archbishop
in Santiago so that it could organize its archives to serve as a key source for
the Chilean truth commission. The archives proved to be invaluable.
The Argentine truth commission was also seen as crucial, and the founda-
tion granted, in the late eighties, one hundred fifty thousand dollars to the
recently established Argentina Forensic Anthropology Team in order for
the group to identify the remains of persons noted in documents of the
Argentine truth commission. The highly skilled and technically-trained Arg-
entine team would later be used to help identify victims of human crimes in
other places around the world.
Even as the foundation had taken cognizance, in a significant way, of the
field of transitional justice, the problems related to judicial or legal approaches
to past abuses were deepening, and therefore warranting greater public
attention. The very challenges posed by documentation from the interna-
tional tribunals dealing with the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda stimulated a
growing interest among human rights NGOs and legal specialists. The inter-
est extended to the application of the so-called principle of “universal juris-
diction,” which posited the right of any staffer to arrest and try practitioners
of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The foundation had awarded a number of grants to NGOs that had been
involved with assisting the work of the international tribunals dealing with
the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It now turned to make possible the cre-
ation of an international criminal court. Grants were given to several major
NGOs that were involved in lobbying for such a court for the future. Among
these NGOs that the foundation would assist heavily were the Coalition for
the International Criminal Court, Parliamentarians for Global Action, the
International Monitor Institute, and the Women’s Caucus for Gender
Justice. Though a burst of activism among human rights groups for the judi-
cial aims had become apparent, it was accompanied by a striking “lack of
coordination” among those seeking to cope with the exciting cutting-edge
work on transitional justice. An equivalent lack of coordination applied to
the area of nonjudicial mechanisms or quasi-judicial mechanisms respond-
ing to past abuses. The host of new initiatives, whether truth commissions,
reparation programs, reconciliation efforts, or plans to preserve and honor

painful historical memory, had no locus. Rather, the various initiatives were
scattered among different countries and institutions around the world. A
central point for assembling information and expertise was distressingly lack-
ing. If, nonetheless, policy considerations on the subject had begun, they
were entirely rooted in an ad hoc and uncoordinated thinking and planning.
Still, the foundation remained keenly interested in the rendering of justice
and, in that connection, had become strongly interested in the establishment
of an international criminal court to deal not with the past incidents already
being handled by regional tribunals, like the ones dealing with Bosnia and
Rwanda, but rather with future episodes of genocide and crimes against
humanity. The overthrow of repressive regimes in Latin America, Eastern
Europe, and South Africa had opened the question of holding accountable
the former perpetrators of violence against human rights. Regional tri-
bunals were, in fact, created by the UN in 1993 and 1994 for those who had
engaged in genocide against Bosnian Muslims and Rwandan Tutsis. The
international community had come to accept that impunity for violators of
international law was no longer tolerable and that government officials could
not be immune from punishment if the former repression included genocide
and crimes against humanity. While other regions or countries were soon to
wrestle with horrendous crimes in local areas—like Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Indonesia, and East Timor—the new focus was upon the future. How would
the international system deal with future crimes of genocide and gross abuses
of persons and communities?
The experiences of the last decade of the twentieth century, with the most
horrendous examples of genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda, recalled earlier
episodes of the trauma of carnage and destruction during prior twentieth-
century decades. An analyst of the history of genocide concluded, “Humanity’s
record in preventing genocide has been nothing short of abysmal.”51 Two
scholars, writing in 1988, calculated that the number of people killed in
genocidal episodes since 1945 ranged from seven to sixteen million, which
was about equal to the number who perished in all international and civil
wars during the same period.52
The concept of an international criminal court was by no means alto-
gether new. It had been projected by the UN General Assembly when
it adopted, in December 1948, the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The most vigorous opponent of the
idea at the time was the Soviet Union, but with its dissolution in 1991,
the idea soon took on viability. In 1994, the International Law Commission,
a UN agency, presented to the General Assembly a new draft statute for an
international criminal court. The Assembly, in turn, created a Preparatory
Committee to act on the proposal.
The 1994 recommendation of the International Law Commission trig-
gered little public response, even if several government representatives dis-
played considerable interest. During the discussion of the proposed draft
statute for a permanent criminal court, a number of UN government delegates
expressed disappointment at the small number of NGOs who were present.

Their absence seemed to reflect public indifference, and, in fact, the chair-
man of the UN’s Legal (Sixth) Committee commented that a greater display
of NGO support could result in much greater progress.53
On February 10, 1995, William Pace, the representative of the World
Federalist Movement, held the first meeting of a small Coalition for an
International Criminal Court. While Pace was the leading organizer of the
meeting, he had the cooperation, in this initiative, of Amnesty International
and the Italian NGO, No Peace Without Justice.54 Also, among the dozen or
so delegates in attendance, virtually every major human rights group was
present. Though starting out most modestly, the coalition, as the small
group formally designated itself, quickly would embrace over three hundred
participating NGOs and started publishing a valuable newsletter, The Inter-
national Criminal Court Monitor. A powerful steering committee was cho-
sen that comprised leading American NGOs like Human Rights Watch, as
well as Amnesty International, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the
International Commission of Jurists, the Women’s Caucus for Gender
Justice, Parliamentarians for Global Action, and several other European-
based NGOs.
That a huge lobbying role involving virtually all human rights and law
groups was essential in order to influence the vast number of UN member
states was apparent from the very beginning. Then why was Pace of the
World Federalist Movement selected to be what was called the coalition’s
“Convener?” His office was among the smallest NGO offices in the United
States—it contained only a couple of persons in the limited New York head-
quarters of some two or three rooms.55 Pace later explained that the largest
NGO, Amnesty International, “doesn’t do networking.” If that excluded
this NGO as convener, others were excluded for a more practicable reason of
“turf” conflicts. With such a monumental operation, it was necessary to
avoid “turf” battles among larger NGOs, like Human Rights Watch and
the Lawyers Committee. Envy of the World Federalist leadership would be
regarded as unseemly; indeed, its leadership was welcomed by those seeking
to avoid entanglements over strategy. And, moreover, the coalition’s steering
committee could act to harmonize overall planning. An initial determination
was for different NGOs to meet with every formal regional and national del-
egation at the UN. Assignments were precise and extended to lobbying
in individual capitals. Thus, Human Rights Watch was asked to lobby in
Brussels, where the European Parliament and the European Union were the
designated targets. Amnesty International was called upon to lobby in Rome
and to collaborate with the Italian NGO, No Peace Without Justice.
Obviously, for such a giant undertaking, sizable funding was needed,
especially to permit NGOs to travel to a host of capitals for lobbying pur-
poses. At the beginning, in 1995, the coalition expenses were between ten
thousand dollars and fifty thousand dollars. But these figures would quadru-
ple and then quintuple in 1996.56 In 1997, the budget of the coalition
jumped to five hundred thousand dollars and six hundred thousand dollars.
What made the budgetary breakthrough possible in 1996, as Pace acknowl-

edged, was the Ford Foundation. A foundation archival file noted that the
new foundation president, Susan Berresford, received from staffer Shepard
Forman, on April 4, 1996, a request of one hundred twenty-five thousand
dollars for the World Federalist Movement, the Convener of the coalition.57
It was apparent that the foundation saw in the coalition initiative an extraor-
dinary opportunity. The “key goal” of the grant was “to build more mem-
bership in the Coalition and greater support for the ICC [International
Criminal Court] within the European Union and other regional groups.”58
It was a most significant indication of the foundation’s new purpose.
The involvement of the foundation proved to be critical and ultimately
decisive for the coalition’s plans. Not only was direct funding made to the
coalition’s Convener, but several of the major NGOs on the steering com-
mittee who were in the forefront of the international lobbying were also
themselves recipients of sizable foundation grants. In fact, certain foundation
grantees played a role in involving the foundation itself. Indeed, as the coali-
tion’s Convener noted, it was the “support” of such NGOs as Human Rights
Watch that resulted in the Ford Foundation grant being made in the first
place.59 That the lobbying work of the coalition would exert an extraordi-
nary impact upon UN delegations would soon become evident. Pace, speak-
ing before an audience of NGOs in Montevideo, Uruguay, related that he
was told by an “important delegation representative” that the coalition was
“the largest and most powerful delegation in the negotiations” for the inter-
national criminal court. Even if the statement could hardly be validated, Pace
still added, “we are a major player in the process.” According to a top-level
authority on the lobbying for the international court, Benjamin Ferencz,
who had been a leading prosecutor at Nuremberg, the work of the NGOs
turned out to be “vital and decisive.”60
The climactic event came on July 17, 1998, at a UN conference of diplo-
matic plenipotentiaries held in Rome.61 By an overwhelming vote of 127 to
seven, the delegates formally adopted the statute creating an International
Criminal Court. The United States, because of Pentagon opposition, voted
with the tiny number to reject the statute as drafted. Still, Ferencz called the
decision a “historic and remarkable achievement.” Recalling that it took
Washington forty years to ratify the Genocide Convention, he expressed the
hope that eventually the United States would join the contracting parties to
the treaty and, indeed, President Clinton formally signed the treaty on
December 31, 2000. The succeeding Bush administration, however, totally
denounced the statute and engaged in a sustained effort to prevent countries
from ratifying it.
According to Hayner, it was Berresford and Romero who played the prin-
cipal leading roles in creating the International Center for Transitional
Justice.62 But in the view of Romero, it was Berresford who, from the very
beginning of her presidency, had moved the foundation toward the new
approach and the creation of a richly endowed NGO.63 He commented,
“[the] center [for transitional justice] is a very good example to use for how
the Foundation’s work after 1995 changed.”64 This fundamental change was
signaled, he said, in a sizable paper on global issues written by Berresford at
the very beginning of her tenure. According to Romero, prior to Berresford
assuming the leadership role, there was not a “global vision” in the founda-
tion’s approach to transitional society problems. Instead, international affairs
were either structured on a national problem basis or on a specific discipline
basis like international law or international economics. “She took a synergy
[approach] that was not there and put it together,” he said.
Berresford’s determination to move quickly on the center’s creation was
shown immediately. After the April 6 meeting, she asked Alex Boraine, the
meeting’s chairman, at a breakfast just for the two of them, to prepare a
memorandum as to how the proposed center would generate funding and
what its budget should be. And she wanted the memorandum done immedi-
ately. Boraine, in an interview several years ago, would recall that only a cou-
ple of days later, he asked Hayner and Paul van Zyl, who had served on the
South African truth commission, to assist him in preparing the document.65
The memorandum was completed very quickly by the three of them. Even
the budget did not present an obstacle, since he had earlier, in his private dis-
cussion with Berresford, suggested a grant of fifteen million dollars over a
five-year period. Boraine recalled that this figure did not “frighten” her. Why
the extraordinarily large grant to an NGO would not be intimidating was
suggested in an interview with Berresford in 2004. She told the interviewer
that, given the new and changed integrated and global structure of the foun-
dation, she wanted the staff to think big. Berresford remembered asking her
staff sometime in the late nineties, “What are the things you’d like to put 50
or 60 million dollars into, not just 100 thousand dollars?”66
Shaping the underpinning of the new NGO’s financial structure was not
only a Ford Foundation function. The final grant figures to the proposed
center revealed that approximately 20 percent of the total funds were to
come from several major other foundation sources. Boraine, in his interview,
revealed that this, too, was a product largely of Berresford’s initiative and
drive. How precisely this was accomplished was not clear, although Boraine
declared in the same interview that he was “quite certain” that Berresford’s
personal role was significant.
But Berresford’s involvement went far beyond merely bringing the center
into existence and providing it with a considerable financial base. It was she
who chose its leader and used some persuasive verbal pressure to realize this
objective. According to Boraine, after she had gotten him, in cooperation
with Zyl and Hayner, to outline the plan for the center’s operation, she then
insisted upon him taking the position of its president. Boraine did not want
the job, which would be located in New York, far from his family in Cape
Town, South Africa. And family considerations were uppermost in his mind.
Berresford would not take “no” for an answer, Boraine recalled. Indeed, she
made it clear to him that his acceptance of her offer was essential if the grant
project and its budget, which he and his colleagues had drafted, were to be
approved. “She is very persuasive,” Boraine told the interviewer.
Clearly, the International Center for Transitional Justice was very much
the product of the Ford Foundation’s planning, and especially Berresford’s
inspiration and determination. Yet the choice of Boraine to head up the new
NGO was nothing short of brilliant in assessing how the NGO could get off
the ground. He had been a top leader of an institution that was seen as a
model for a crucial element of the center’s future activities—South Africa’s
Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While the commission was headed by
the very prominent church official, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, it was the
deputy-chairman, Alex Boraine, who was the key operator of the commis-
sion. In that position, he would acquire a body of knowledge and experience
that enabled him to launch the valuable center. The South African truth
commission had as its fundamental building block the principle of granting
amnesty to all who were involved in a leadership or operational role in the
apartheid system, provided that they came forward with full confessions
about the misdeeds that they had committed. “Amnesty was the price we
had to pay for peace,” Boraine had noted in emphasizing both the “truth”
and “reconciliation” aspects of the commission.67 As its vice-chairman, he
had accumulated a rich body of documentation of the massive abusive bru-
talities of the apartheid system from the more than seven thousand confes-
sions that the commission had heard, as well as from the testimony of
twenty thousand victims. The vast and unique documentation could hardly
be garnered anywhere else.
In the course of its first few years, the center proved to be enormously
productive. If, at the beginning, its staff had taken on responsibilities in a
dozen or so countries, the foundation’s grant recommendation in 2004
for the year beginning in September referred to twenty-three countries in
which the center “would continue or begin work” during the subsequent
twelve months.68 But the document was equally revealing in noting that the
center, since its establishment, had “carried out work in more than thirty-two
countries” and had become “a leading resource on transitional justice almost
everywhere else.” Commensurate with the embrace of a significant number
of separate countries on virtually every continent, the center was reputed to
have more than doubled its previous staff size, now standing at twenty-nine.
The 2004 grant took account of the center’s priorities, which were similar
to those of the foundation. A major priority was “to empower local actors to
make informed transitional justice policy decisions” by providing them with
appropriate information, analysis, and legal and technical assistance. But the
grant also noted that the center was taking on new initiatives. It was “vetting
issues for prosecutions” to be carried out by international or hybrid tribunals,
and it would focus more on gender issues and on matters of reconciliation.69
Of special pertinence were new responsibilities assumed by the center as the
basic source of information and advice to all professionals in the transitional
justice field.
Through special arrangements with the United Nations, “separate semi-
nars” would be conducted by the center with the UN Security Council,
the UN Department of Political Affairs, and the UN Office of the High

Commissioner for Refugees. The seminars would supplement other training
programs of the center noted by the foundation, including seminars for spe-
cial groups interested in truth commissions and for various NGO networks.
Clearly, with the obvious encouragement and support of the foundation, the
center was seen as the major global educator on the myriad aspects of transi-
tional justice.
The foundation’s report was quite explicit with respect to how it per-
ceived the center to be closely and continuously linked to the foundation’s
purposes and activities. It noted that the grant creating the new institution
“would form” part of the foundation’s initiative “to strengthen existing or
create new effective mechanisms for justice and accountability for human
rights violations.”70 The sharply emphasized educational function of the cen-
ter, as perceived by the foundation in its grant, was followed two years later
with the appointment of the center’s new president to succeed Alex Boraine.
He was Juan Mendez, who, appropriately enough, had most recently served
as professor of law and director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights at
the University of Notre Dame. Its global role was reinforced through
Mendez’s appointment by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as his “special
adviser” on genocide, a function of major significance to the center itself.
In 2006, the Ford Foundation extended to the center a second fifteen
million dollars for another five years. Both grants significantly exceeded the
awards given to any other NGO in the foundation’s history. But, howsoever
involved the center was and would be in the pressing problems of the inter-
national community, its grants represented but a fraction of foundation
commitments in the human rights field. The promise of over a half century
to promote “human welfare,” deepened by a promise in the seventies to
advance human rights, have yet to be entirely fulfilled. They remain principal
purposes of the foundation for the future.
N ot e s
Chapter 1
1. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace,
5th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973). The 6th edition in 1985 had
Kenneth W. Thompson as coauthor to Morgenthau. His name appears after the
book’s title as one who revised the volume.
2. Hans J. Morgenthau. Revised by Kenneth W. Thompson, Politics among Nations:
The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 274–78.
3. Ibid., 276.
4. See Jack Donnelly, Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: Forty Years of
Thinking (mimeograph provided by author, Chapel Hill, NC, 1987), 3. It was
an article by the author of this book that ended the silence of Foreign Affairs on
Human Rights. See William Korey, “Human Rights Treaties: Why is the U.S.
Stalling?” Foreign Affairs 45, no. 3 (April 1967): 414–24.
5. See William Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 151–80.
6. William Greenleaf, The Ford Foundation: The Formative Years (mimeograph,
Fort Collins, CO, July 15, 1958), Preface, p. 2. A copy was found in the Ford
Foundation Archives. This manuscript, a solid one, was based upon archival
sources. Why it remained unpublished is not known. This chapter is largely
based upon the Greenleaf manuscript. It should be emphasized that each chap-
ter of the Greenleaf manuscript has its own pagination.
7. The citation is from Andrew Carnegie’s article, “The Gospel of Wealth,” cited in
Dwight Macdonald, The Ford Foundation: The Men and the Millions (New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1989), 46; originally published, Reynal,
1955.
8. Neil Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hitler (New
York: Public Affairs Press, 2001), 144.
9. Ibid., 284.
10. Ibid., 306.
11. Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company and a Century
of Progress, 1903–2003 (New York: Viking Press, 2003), 383.
12. Ibid., 427.
13. Waldemar A. Nielsen, The Big Foundations (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1972), 78.
272 N ot e s
14. Greenleaf, The Formative Years, s chap. 1, p. 1.

15. Ibid., 7–8.
16. Ibid., 13.
17. Ibid., 23.
18. Ibid., 28.
19. Ibid., 28n59.
20. Ibid., 33.
21. Greenleaf, The Formative Years, s chap. 1, p. 32n60.
22. Macdonald, The Ford Foundation, 138–39.
23. Greenleaf, The Formative Years, s 33n61.
24. Ibid., chap. 2, p. 1n1.
25. Ibid., 2.
26. Macdonald, The Ford Foundation, 173.
27. Ibid., 24–25n52.
28. Ibid., 33.
29. Ibid., vii. This appeared in an essay at the beginning of Macdonald’s study of the
Ford Foundation.
30. Ibid., 3. Macdonald’s book was based upon three long articles he wrote for The
New Yorker, where he served as a frequent columnist.
31. Francis X. Sutton, “Introduction to the Transaction Edition,” in Macdonald,
The Ford Foundation, xi.
32. Ibid.
34. Ibid., 40.
35. Ibid., 43.
37. Greenleaf, The Formative Years, s 46n97.
38. Ibid., chap. 3, p. 1.
39. Ibid., 23.
40. Kathleen D. McCarthy, “From Cold War to Cultural Development: The
International Cultural Activities of the Ford Foundation, 1950–1980,”
Daedalus 116, no. 1 (Winter 1987): 93–94.
41. Ibid., 100.
42. Ibid., 107–9.
43. Details of the origins of the Congress are found in Peter Coleman, The Liberal
Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of
Postwar Europe (New York: Free Press, 1989), 2.
44. Ibid., 45.
45. Ibid., 94.
46. Ibid., 224–25.
47. For a detailed examination of the International Association, see Volker R.
Berghahn, American Intelligentsia and the Cold War in Europe (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2002).
49. Ibid., 35n63.
50. The Ford Foundation Archives carry an abundance of documentation on the hear-
ings, including statements by Reece, summaries of testimony, the final report of
the Reece Committee (December 1954), and surveys of press coverage.
N ot e s 273
52. Ibid., 49.

53. Raphael Lemkin to Don Price of the Ford Foundation, December 1, 1957,
Ford Foundation Archives, Document Number 36302. The rare letter was
found in the Ford Foundation Archives in 2005 and sent to the author.
Lemkin’s letter was received on December 3, 1957.
54. Don Price to Raphael Lemkin, December 5, 1957, Ford Foundation Archives.
This letter was found in the archives attached to the Lemkin letter.
55. Letter to Professor Leo Kuper from William P. Gormley of Foundations
Comptorller Office, September 10, 1981. It was found in the Ford Foundation
Archives. Attached to the copy in the archives was an interoffice memorandum
by Shepard Forman to Francis Sutton endorsing the grant, August 4, 1981.
56. The document was found in the file of Shepard Forman.
57. Rosalyn Higgins, Human Rights: Needs and Priorities (mimeograph, Ford
Foundation Archives, September 1973), 1. Higgins is today the president of the
International Court of Justice in The Hague.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid., 13.
60. Ibid., 15.
Chapter 2
1. Scott Busby, Making Human Rights Real: A History of the Ford Foundation’s
Human Rights Program in Latin America and the Caribbean (mimeograph,
Ford Foundation Archives, December 1989), 8. The study was prepared for
the Ford Foundation.
2. Ibid.
3. Jeffrey Puryear, “Higher Education, Development Assistance and Repressive
Regimes” (February 1963). A note in the Ford Foundation archives attatched to
the Puryear essay reveals that the article was adapted from an article in Studies in
Comparative Development 17, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 7; Jay Weinstein, ed., Studies
in Comparative Development (Atlanta: Georgia Institute of Technology, 1982),
3–35. Puryear was a leading figure in the Ford Foundation’s Santiago office.
4. Busby, Making Human Rights Real, l 9n15.
5. Puryear, “Higher Education,” 20.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.., 21.
8. Ibid., 22.
9. See Jeffrey M. Puryear, Thinking Politics: Intellectuals and Democracy in Chile,
1973–1988 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 42–52.
11. Puryear, Thinking Politics,s 52.
12. Kalman H. Silvert to William D. Carmichael, unpublished memorandum,
March 26, 1974.
13. Ibid.
14. Busby, Making Human Rights Real, l 6.
15. Kalman H. Silvert to David E. Bell, unpublished memorandum, October 8,
1971. David Bell was vice-president of the International Division for the
Foundation.
274 N ot e s

17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. See David Forsythe, Human Rights in World Politics (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1989), 92.
20. Larry Rohter, “Visit to U.S. Isn’t a First for Chile’s First Female President,”
New York Times, s June 8, 2006.
21. Richard R. Fagen to William Fulbright. Attached to Richard R. Fagen’s letter to
William Carmichael October 8, 1973, Ford Foundation Archives. The report to
Senator Fulbright and the covering note to Carmichael were found in the Ford
Foundation’s McGeorge Bundy file. Carmichael was a vice-president of the
foundation.
22. Ibid.
23. William Carmichael to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, October
13, 1973. The memorandum is in the Bundy file. Actually, the memo appears on
the letterhead of Carmichael, as if it were a personal note.
24. Ibid.
25. Peter Bell to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, March 28, 1974.
Copies of the memo, which was found in the Bundy file, had been sent to
David Bell. Bell was a vice-president of the Ford Foundation, as was William
Carmichael.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Peter Bell to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, April 9, 1974.
Copies of the second memo were also sent to David Bell and William
Carmichael. The second memo was available in the Bundy file.
29. Jeffrey Puryear, unpublished memorandum, March 17, 1982. This memo iden-
tified its subject matter as “Missing,” referring to the movie “Missing.” It was
found in the files of Shepard Forman, a high foundation official. “Representative,”
in essence, meant the head of the local regional office or bureau.
30. New York Times, s April 23, 2002, Metro Section, p. 2. The article is particularly
long and carries a picture of Joyce Horman.
31. The impressive documentary is described by Alex Wilde, the Ford Foundation’s
vice-president for communications, in a recent foundation journal. See Alex
Wilde, “In Chile, a New Generations Revisits Haunted Space,” Ford Foundation
Report 34, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 40–41.
32. Peter Bell to William Carmichael, unpublished memorandum, April 1, 1974.
The interoffice memo in the Ford Foundation Archives is numbered Document
008957.
33. Richard Dye to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, September 11,
1974. The memo was transmitted via David Bell and William Carmichael.
34. Francis Sutton, interview by the author, May 22, 2002.
36. Ibid., 16.
37. Ibid., 17.
38. Ibid., 15.
39. David Heaps to David Bell, unpublished memorandum, July 17, 1974. Copies
were also addressed to Francis Sutton and Crauford Goodwin. Goodwin, like
Sutton, was a high official of the Ford Foundation.
N ot e s 275
40. It would be cited by David Heaps in his revolutionary Draft Report on Human
Rights (mimeograph, Ford Foundation Archives, August 1975), 9. The docu-
ment number is 005643.
42. David Heaps to David Bell, unpublished memorandum, July 17, 1974. The
subject title is “1980 Budget: Alternative Programme Interest.”
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. James Gardner to David Heaps, unpublished memorandum, October 7, 1974;
and James Gardner to Robert Edwards, memorandum, October 8, 1974,
February 7, 1975. Both memorandums are in Gardner Papers, s Ford Foundation
Archives. Also, see Busby, Making Human Rights Real, l 12n11.
46. James Gardner to Peter Bell, William Carmichael, Robert Edwards, David Heaps,
Kalman Silvert, and Francis Sutton, unpublished memorandum, February 7,
1975. The subject of the memo was, “Law, Development and Human Rights:
The Trubek Proposal.”
47. The Bell memo has not been located but is cited in David Heaps, Draft Report
on Human Rights.
48. David Bell’s memorandum of covering his report on a trip to Latin America,
May 29, 1975, is entitled “Visit to Latin America” (April 5–26, 1975). It is cited
in Heaps’s Draft Report.
49. New York Times, s “David Heaps, 84, Human Rights Advocate,” June 17, 2000.
50. Ibid.
51. Heaps, Draft Report, t 2.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid., 7–11.
54. Ibid., 12–14.
55. Ibid., 15.
56. Ibid., 15–47. These sections discuss the treatment of NGOs.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., 15.
59. Ibid., 16.
60. Ibid., 18.
61. Ibid., 51.
62. Ibid., 47–54.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., 55. The rationale was contained in the following way: the scholars and
intellectuals were “a primary Foundation constituency; and policies contrived to
their detriment should evoke Foundation concern for reasons of principle and of
relevance to the international community.”
65. Ibid., 66.
66. Ibid.
Chapter 3
1. William Carmichael, “The Role of the Ford Foundation,” in NGOs and Human
Rights: Promise and Performance, by Claude Welch, Jr. (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). Carmichael’s essay refers to a staff conference in
276 N ot e s
late 1974, but it is apparent, on the basis of internal evidence, that he was think-
ing about a staff conference in September 1975.
2. Ibid.
3. David Bell, Comments (Ford Foundation Archives, August 20, 1975).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. David Heaps to Francis Sutton and Crawfurd Goodwin, with copies sent to
James Gardner and Sanford Jaffe. The document number is 000066.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Francis X Sutton, Human Rights and Intellectual Freedom: Information Paper
(Ford Foundation, November 1975).The document number as noted in the
Archives was 002256.
10. The name was written in ink with quotation marks around it.
Ford Foundation Archives, December 1989), 12. The author states that Sutton,
in “a subsequent interview,” “confirmed that he and Heaps were the primary
authors of the piece” (12n23).
12. Francis Sutton, phone interview by the author, May 22, 2002. Sutton empha-
sized that he had served as the policy draftsman for all kinds of papers at the
foundation.
13. The author wrote about the significance of the Helsinki Final Act in two articles
for The New Republic, one of which was unsigned and assumed an editorial char-
acter. Details of the Helsinki Accords are to be found in William Korey, The
Promises We Keep: Human Rights, the Helsinki Process and American Foreign
Policy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).
14. See Korey, The Promises We Keep, 1–19.
15. Sutton, Human Rights, s 2.
16. For a description of the Vicariate and how it functioned, see the Ford
Foundation Archives Grant File Doc. 0840-0621 B, August 11, 1988, pp. 1–2.
17. Ibid., 4.
18. Ibid.
19. Richard Dye to William Carmichael, unpublished memorandum, June 25,
1976, Ford Foundation Archives, Document Number 009373. Copies were
also sent to McGeorge Bundy, David Bell, Jeffrey Puryear, and Ford Foundation
Latin American officers outside of Santiago.
20. Ibid.
21. Soedjatmoko, Transcript of Remarks by Dr. Soedjatmoko to OLAC Staff (tran-
script, Ford Foundation Archives, June 23, 1976). This document is attached to
the Doc. No. 009372.
22. Ibid., 3.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., 6.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., 7.
27. Ibid., 8.
28. Ibid.
N ot e s 277
29. Richard Dye to William Carmichael, “Refugee Situation in Argentina,” July 26,
1976, Ford Foundation Archives, Document Number 009373. Copies were
sent to foundation human rights staffers Bruce Bushey in Rio de Janeiro and K.
Manitzas in Lima, Peru.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., 2.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Nita Rous Manitzas, Evaluation of the Southern Cone DAP (mimeograph, Ford
Foundation Archives, February 1980). The trip to the Southern Cone was taken
by Manitzas in January 1980.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 2.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., 8.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid., 8.
43. For good discussions of the transition, see Carmichael, “The Role of the Ford
Foundation,” 250–52; and Busby, Making Human Rights Real, l 22–23.
44. Carmichael, “The Role of the Ford Foundation,” 252.
45. Franklin Thomas, “Presidential Review,” Annual Report 1980 (New York: Ford
Foundation, 1980), VIII–IX.
46. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Carmichael, “The Role of the Ford Foundation,” 252. He had <~?~retired> by
the end of the twentieth century.
50. Ibid., 259n10.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid., 30.
54. Brazil Program Review 1985, mimeograph, 14–15.
55. Margaret Crahan, Human Rights in Latin America (mimeograph, Ford Foun-
dation Archives, 1982). This report covers a field trip taken during November
26–December 11, 1982. In the Ford Foundation Archives, it is identified as
Document Number 008234.William Saint’s unpublished memorandum was
sent to his foundation colleagues in New York, April 8, 1983. A foundation offi-
cial who dealt with Saint was in the Lima, Peru office.
56. Crahan, Human Rights in Latin America, 45.
57. Ibid., 23. Amazingly, she predicted that Peru may “shortly enter a period of
substantial violations of the physical integrity of persons” as well as of human
rights in general.
58. Ibid., 26–45.
59. Ibid., 38.
60. Margo Picken, The Ford Foundation’s International Human Rights Program: A
History and An Agenda (mimeograph, Ford Foundation, January 21, 1995).
The Document Number is 012632. Picken had been the Ford Foundation’s
278 N ot e s
Human Rights Program Officer at the time. Earlier, she had represented Amnesty
International at the UN.
61. Ibid., 4.
Chapter 4
1. Margo Picken, The Ford Foundation’s International Human Rights Program: A
History and an Agenda (mimeograph, Ford Foundation, January 21, 1995),
Ford Foundation Archives, Dec. No. 012632.
2. The citation is from the foundation’s annual Presidential Review of 1980, pp.
5–6.
3. Ford Foundation Archives, Document File Number 830-0934, October 16,
1997, p. 1.
4. Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee
on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Human Rights in the World
Community: A Call for World Leadership (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1974), 93rd Cong., 1st sess. The actual hearings were pub-
lished separately as: Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on International
Organizations and Movements, International Protection of Human Rights: The
Work of International Organizations and the Role of U.S. Foreign Policy, 93rd
Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974).
5. Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee
on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights in the World Community, 9.
6. Ibid., 50.
7. A deep concern of Congress was the U.S. supporting role of the military coup
in Chile. Later documentation would reveal the extent of the support. Larry
Rohter, “New Evidence Surfaces in ’73 Killing of American in Chile,” New York
Times,
s March 12, 2004, p. 3. Also see Rohter, “Word for Word: Kissinger on
Pinochet; The Human Rights Crowd Gives Real Politik the Jitters,” New York
Times,
s week in review, December 28, 2003, p. 3. Neil A. Lewis, “Delight over
Coup Is Evident in Transcripts: Discussion between
t Kissinger and Nixon abut
Events in Chile,” New York Times, s May 28, 2004.
8. Sandy Vogelgesang, American Dream, Global Nightmare: The Dilemma of U.S.
Human Rights Policy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1980), 110–57.
9. Ibid., 147.
10. Bruce Bushey to Francis Sutton, unpublished memorandum, July 28, 1980.
The source is to be found in the Ford Foundation Archives, and the Document
File Number is 08050827.
11. Joseph Eldridge, interview by the author, July 10, 1996. At that time, Eldridge
was serving as the director of the Washington office of the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights.
12. David Forsythe, Human Rights in World Politics (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1989), 141, 145.
13. Bruce Bushey to Francis Sutton, unpublished memorandum, July 28, 1980, p. 1.
14. Ibid., 3.
15. Ibid., 2.
N ot e s 279
16. Ford Foundation Archives, Document File Number 83-934, September 15,
1983. The “Responsible Program Officers” were listed as Jeffrey Puryear and
Shepard Forman, the top foundation human rights specialists on Latin America.
17. Ibid., 23.
18. Ibid., 25.
19. Ibid., 6
20. Ibid., 8.
21. Ibid., 9–10.
22. Anthony Romero and Alexander Wilde to Susan Berresford, recommendation,
October 16, 1997, 4. See Ford Foundation Archives Document File Number
830-0934.
23. Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981). Timerman was accompanied to the hearings by
PatriciaDerian, President Jimmy Carter’s human rights adviser. The author of
this manuscript had played a role in the release of Timerman.
24. Aryeh Neier, interview by the author and Catherine Fitzpatrick, June 3, 2003.
Catherine Fitzpatrick was then assisting the author in the preparation of mate-
rial for this chapter.
25. Aryeh Neier, Taking Liberties (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2003), 152–56.
26. Ibid., 153.
27. Ibid., 156.
28. Picken, The Ford Foundation, 10.
29. Ibid.
30. Shepard Forman to Franklin Thomas, unpublished memorandum, September
11, 1981. The memorandum is to be found in the Ford Foundation Archives,
and the Document File Number is 79-807.
31. William Saint to Jeffrey Puryear, unpublished memorandum, November 9, 1981.
The Saint memorandum can be found in the Ford Foundation Archives, Grant
File Document 82-576.
32. Identified in the Ford Foundation Archives as “Request No. DCP 34US1AP-
86. No specific date was given on the document.
33. Margaret Crahan, Human Rights in Latin America (Ford Foundation, December
1982) Ford Foundation Archives, s Doc. No. 008234.
34. Lima Program Review FY 1985, 19.
Ford Foundation Archives, December 1989), 40.
36. William Carmichael to Franklin Thomas, grant recommendation, August 28,
1986, p. 1. For reasons not clear, this Grant File Document in the Ford
Foundation Archives was attached to the Grant File Document 846-0651,
which came two years later in 1988.
37. Ibid., 2.
38. Ibid., 8–9.
39. Ibid., 8.
40. Alex Wilde, “Preface” Preserving Historical Memory: Documents and Human
Rights Archives in the Southern Cone (paper presented at conference in
Santiago, Chile, August 1999). Wilde had served with WOLA before beginning
his career with the foundation.
280 N ot e s
Chapter 5
1. The Final Act comprised three Baskets. Basket 1 dealt with security and Basket
2 dealt with trade and scientific exchange.
2. For a detailed discussion, see William Korey, The Promises We Keep: Human
Rights, the Helsinki Process and American Foreign Policy (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1993), 45–61.
3. Ibid., 46–47.
4. Ibid.
5. For a discussion about the role of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, see
William Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A
Curious Grapevine (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 232–33.
6. Ibid., 233–34.
7. Ibid., 234.
8. December 10, 1948, was the date of the adoption of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. Since then, commemoration of the day has become an annual
event.
9. Bruce Bushey to Joshua Nelson, August 4, 1977. Joshua Nelson was a high-
level staffer at the Twentieth Century Fund. This letter is located in the McGeorge
Bundy File, and the Document Number is 77-407.
10. Bayard Rustin, Roger Baldwin, and John Richardson, June 3, 1977. The letter
was addressed to the many NGO groups with interest in human rights. It was
signed by Roger Baldwin, the Honorary President of the International League
for Human Rights, and John Richardson, the President of Freedom House. A
copy of the letter was found in the McGeorge Bundy file.
11. A summary of the proceedings of August 8 was found in the McGeorge Bundy
file. Its File Document Number is 77-407. It was probably prepared by a foun-
dation staffer after the conference. Speculation on who exactly prepared the
document centered on Felice Gaer, a foundation staffer especially involved with
the Helsinki process.
12. Felice Gaer to Bruce Bushey, unpublished memorandum, March 14, 1977. The
memo was found in the McGeorge Bundy file, and its document number is
77-407.
13. Gaer repeatedly misspelled Gershman’s name as “Gerschman.”
14. Felice Gaer, interview by the author, February 5, 2003.
15. Felice Gaer to Francis Sutton, unpublished memorandum, September 24, 1979.
Bruce Bushey was sent a copy of the memo. It is in the Bundy file, and the
Document Number is 79-307.
16. See Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration, 238, 563n32–35.
17. Ibid, 341–42.
18. Felice Gaer to Francis Sutton, unpublished memorandum, September 24, 1979.
This memo is located in the Bundy File and is Document Number 79-307.
19. Alfred Friendly, Jr. to Arthur J. Goldberg, April 25, 1978. The letter was pre-
pared on U.S. Helsinki Commission stationery.
20. Fund for Free Expression, “Report for a Planning Grant to Establish a U.S.
Helsinki Watch Committee to be administered by the Fund for Free Expression,
Inc.,” May 23, 1978. The two major functions of U.S. Helsinki Watch, as envis-
aged in the April 5, 1977, meeting and later discussion, were spelled out in this
N ot e s 281
formal “request” by the Fund for Free Expression to the Ford Foundation for a
planning grant. The document is eight pages long.
21. Francis Sutton to Bruce Bushey, unpublished memorandum, May 10, 1978.
This memo was found in the Bundy file.
22. Bruce Bushey to Francis Sutton, unpublished memorandum, May 5, 1978. This
memo was found in the Bundy file.
23. Francis Sutton to Bruce Bushey, unpublished memorandum. This memo was
found in the Bundy file.
24. “Request for a Planning Grant to Establish a U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee”
to be administered by Fund for Free Expression was found in the Bundy file.
25. The Jeri Laber letter was signed by her as “Executive Director” of Bernstein’s
International Freedom to Public Committee. The letter was found in the Bundy
File, No. 78-517.
26. The formal letter of the Ford Foundation was dated July 6, 1978.
27. The report, found in the Bundy file, is undated. Obviously, it was written after
January 31, 1979.
28. Bruce Bushey to Felice Gaer, unpublished memorandum, July 28, 1978. The
interoffice memo was found in the Bundy file, Document Number 785-517.
29. Ibid., 5.
30. Jeri Laber, The Courage of Strangers: Coming of Age with the Human Rights
Movement (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2002), 100.
31. Fund for Free Expression, “Report,” 7.
32. Felice Gaer to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, December 13,
1978. This memo was in the Bundy file numbered 785-517. In the memo, Gaer
reported that Fishlow “seemed much relieved” by her remarks.
33. Fund for Free Expression, “Report,” 4. A copy of the Fishlow letter is available
in the Bundy file.
34. Bruce Bushey to Francis Sutton, unpublished memorandum, July 24, 1980.
The interoffice memorandum was identified as a “Final Evaluation” of the grant
to the Fund for Free Expression. It was found in the Bundy File, Document
Number 78-517. The reference to Fishlow’s specialty in dealing with “minority
problems” refers to his involvement with Latinos in his North California ACLU
position.
35. Bruce Bushey and Felice Gaer to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum,
“Status of U.S. Helsinki Watch Group Planning.” Copies were designated, too,
for David Bell and Francis Sutton. The document was in the Bundy File,
Document Number 785-517.
36. Jeri Laber, unpublished memorandum, November 6, 1978. The memo was not
sent to anyone; it was designed for her files. A copy was found in the Bundy File.
37. Jeri Laber memo, dated October 10, 1978, designed for her files. Also referred
to in the memo was a meeting with the author of this study, whose advice to her
was similar to that provided by Sidney Liskofsky. The memo was found in the
Bundy File.
38. Bruce Bushey and Felice Gaer to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum,
“U.S. Citizens’ Helsinki Monitoring Committee,” November 3, 1978. A copy
was sent to Francis Sutton. The memo was found in the Bundy File.
39. Felice Gaer to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, “Additional
Members: Helsinki Watch,” November 23, 1978. The memo contained an
attached list and was found in the Bundy File.
282 N ot e s
40. Annual Program Review (New York: Ford Foundation, 1979), 33–34.
41. Ibid., 55–56.
42. Francis Sutton to Bruce Bushey and Felice Gaer, unpublished memorandum,
April 10, 1980.
43. Le Monde, November 12, 1980. A summary of the article is in William Korey,
The Promises We Keep, chap. 7, 123–24.
44. Freedom House hosted a sizable number of Soviet dissenters and had arranged
to bring Andrei Amalrik, a prominent Soviet dissident and novelist, to Madrid,
but he was killed in an automobile accident while on his way. See Freedom at
Issue (January–February, 1981), 39.
45. For details on the repression, see Peter Reddaway, Soviet Policies on Dissent and
Emigration: The Radical Change of Course Since 1979 (mimeograph, Washington,
D.C., August 28, 1984). Also see Korey, The Promises We Keep, 115–18.
46. Jeri Laber, interview by the author, April 14, 1994.
47. The information is drawn from a diary by Laber provided to the author.
48. Jeri Laber, “Moscow vs. Rights,” Op-Ed, New York Times, s July 31, 1980.
49. Jeri Laber, “The Moscow Book Fair: But Where Are the Writers?” Op-Ed,
Washington Post,t May 6, 1981.
50. Jeri Laber, “The Dreams That Died,” Village Voice, December 23–29, 1981.
51. Jeri Laber, interview by the author, April 14, 1994.
52. Lotte Leicht, interview by the author, April 14, 1994.
53. Program of Events, CSCE Seminar of Experts on Democratic Institutions (Oslo:
CSCE, November 4–5, 1991), 4.
54. Laber, The Courage of Strangers Coming of Age with the Human Rights
Movement (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2002), 350.
55. Ibid., 351.
56. Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 759.
57. Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration, 348.
Chapter 6
1. Margo Picken, unpublished memorandum, February 1, 1995. This memo is to
be found in the Grant File, Document Number 0915-0486, p. 1.
2. Ibid.
3. Francis Sutton to William Korey, June 4, 2002.
4. Ford Foundation Archives Grant File Document Number 09150486, February
1, 1991, 1–3.
6. The Michnik letter was attached to the formal Picken request for a Ford
Foundation grant. Michnik was identified as an “alumnus” of FEIE by Felice
Gaer, a Ford Foundation staffer, in an academic paper at a Columbia University
conference in January 1981.
8. Francis Sutton to Margo Picken, December 20, 1994. This letter can be found
as an attachment to Picken’s close-out interoffice memorandum of February 1,
1995. The File Number is 91-486.
9. Ibid., 2. That page reveals that David Heaps also wrote a letter of evaluation that
was sent to the director of the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna. However,
N ot e s 283
no copy of that letter was found in the foundation files, even if Picken referred
to it. Picken was in charge of human rights in the Ford Foundation at the time.
10. Margo Picken to Susan Berresford, “Recommendation,” February 1, 1991, p.
3. This document was a recommendation for a grant for the Beylin study. It is
Grant File Number 0915-048.
11. Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and
the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe (New York: The Free Press, 1989),
1–2.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 214.
14. Ibid.Coleman, 264.
15. Volker R. Berghahn, American Intelligentsia and the Cold War in Europe
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 269.
16. Ibid., 275.
17. Marek Beylin, Fondation Pour Une Entr’aide Intellectuelle Europenne
[Foundation for European Intellectual Cooperation] (Mimeograph, Ford
Foundation Archives, 1995), 19. Document number PA 09150486.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 20.
20. Ibid., 21. This quote is from a memo by Heaps.
21. Ibid., 24.
22. Ibid., 37–38.
23. Ibid., 39.
24. Ibid., 42.
25. Ibid., 43.
26. Ibid., 44.
27. Ibid. The specific time was not spelled out.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., 46.
30. Margo Picken to Susan Berresford, unpublished memorandum, “Recommendations
for Delegated Authority Grant,” February 1, 1991, p. 3. Details of this funding
and other information is to be found in this memo.
31. Marek Beylin, Fondation Pour Une Entr’aide Intellectuelle Europennee.
32. Ibid., 11.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid. The three men were prominent European intellectuals. Kolakowski was a
Polish philosopher and Aron was an outstanding French scholar and essayist.
35. Ibid., 13.
36. Ibid., 54.
37. Ibid., 59.
38. Ibid., 64.
39. Felice Gaer, “Western Private Organizations and East European Dissent” t (essay,
Columbia University Conference, New York, NY, January 29–30, 1981), 7. The
essay was prepared for a Columbia University Conference on dissent in Eastern
Europe. Gaer is identified as being with the Ford Foundation.
40. Ibid., 71.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid., 75.
284 N ot e s
43. Ibid., 78. Among such knowledgeable institutions was the U.S.-created
National Endowment for Democracy.
44. Beylin, Fondation, 91–92.
45. Ibid., 92. Indeed, he assured the reader that his description was “not exagger-
ated.”
46. Ibid., 93.
47. Ibid., 94.
48. Ibid., 96.
49. Ibid., 97.
50. Ibid., 98.
51. Ibid., 99.
52. Ibid., 100.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., 101.
55. Ibid., 101.
56. Ibid., 102.
57. Ibid., 103–4.
Chapter 7
1. See Ford Foundation, “Program Actions Index,” Archives File Number PA 53-
202, October 1986, section 4, 977. The Index is to be found in the archives of
the foundation.
2. Ford Foundation, Annual Report for 1954 (New York: Ford Foundation,
1954), 29.
3. Melvin J. Fox to John B. Howard, Report on a Visit to South Africa, unpublished
memorandum, January 4, 1960, p. 19. Examples are provided in this report by
a foundation staffer, Melvin J. Fox, following a two-and-one-half week visit to
South Africa in December 1959. The report, a memo to John B. Howard, was
sent on January 4, 1960 and contained thirty-nine pages.
4. Paul J. Kaiser, “Economic Sanctions and South Africa” (master’s thesis, s New
York University, April 1987), 22. The author, in preparation for the study, had
access to the foundation’s archives. A copy of the paper was found in the
archives (Document Number 011137).
5. Ibid.
6. Fox, Report on a Visit to South Africa, 20.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 22.
9. Ibid., 23–24.
10. Ibid., 25.
11. Ibid., 26.
12. Ibid., 27.
13. Ibid., 17.
14. Ibid., 27–39.
15. David Smock, Report on My Trip to Southern Africa (mimeograph, Ford
Foundation Archives, March 10, 1969). The document is in the Ford Founda-
tion Archives and carries the Document Number 008908. It is addressed to
Wayne Fredericks.
N ot e s 285
16. Ibid., 10–16.

17. Ibid, 2.
18. Ibid., 4.
19. Details here are from Ford Foundation Archives Grant File PA 73-400, which
was identified as Request No. ID-1529 and is dated October 25, 1972, pp. 3–4.
20. Kai Bird, The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in
Arms (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 391–94.
21. Ibid, 392.
22. Ibid., 393
23. Ford Foundation Archives, Grant File PA 73-400, 4.
24. Ibid., 6.
25. Ibid., 1. The grant was designed to cover the cost of one staff lawyer working
full time for the committee.
26. Wayne Fredericks, Southern Africa (mimeograph, Ford Foundation Archives,
February 1972). This document contains twenty-four pages and two appendices
totaling ten pages.
27. Ibid., 4–5.
28. Ibid., 10.
29. Neville Curtis, “South Africa: The Politics of Fragmentation,” Foreign Affairs
50, no. 20 (January 1972): 283–96. Fredericks, Southern Africa, 16.
30. Fredericks, Southern Africa, 11.
31. Fredericks, “Southern Africa Actions, 1968–71,” in Southern Africa, 2.
32. Ibid., 17.
33. Fredericks, “The Ford Foundation and Southern Africa,” in Southern Africa,
11–24. This section, which appears as a seemingly separate part of the Fredericks
report, makes repeated references to the decisions of the Ford Foundation’s
Middle East and Africa Division. This section includes a subsection entitled,
“Assessment of Risk Relating to a Southern Africa Program” (18–20).
34. Fredericks, “Appendix,” in Southern Africa. The separate appendix numbers six
pages. Significantly, the excerpted sections are identified as having been “pre-
sented to Foundation Officers and Trustees.”
35. Ibid., 6.
36. Ibid.
37. Memorandum from Sheila Avrin McLean to Robert Edwards, unpublished,
“The Republic of South Africa,” December 27, 1976. The report is identified in
the Ford Foundation Archives as Document Number 009377, p. 1.
38. Ibid., 1.
39. Ibid., 6.
40. Ibid., 8.
41. Ibid., 9–10.
42. Ibid., 11.
43. Ibid., 13.
44. Ibid., 18.
Chapter 8
1. David Heaps to David Bell and Robert Edwards, unpublished memorandum,
“South and Southern Africa Refugee Situation—Available and Potential Sources
286 N ot e s
of Assistance,” March 1, 1977. Copies were also sent to McLean and Smock.
The document number in the Ford Foundation Archives is 009378. It contains
thirty-four pages.
2. Ibid., 2.
3. Ibid., 33.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., 25.
6. Ibid., 34.
7. Robert Edwards to David Bell, unpublished memorandum, “Southern Africa:
Program Directions,” June 6, 1977.
7 The memo was identified as a “revised” draft
but the initial draft was not found. In the Ford Foundation Archives, the
Document Number is 007409. It runs twenty-nine pages.
8. Ibid., 10.
9. Ibid., 15. Edwards left the impression that the series was already completed and
published.
10. See South Africa: Time Running Out: The Report of the Study Commission on
U.S. Policy toward Southern Africa, (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1981), xi-xii. The foreword was written by Franklin A. Thomas, and ran three
pages. It contains some details of the origins of the Commission.
11. Robert Edwards, unpublished memorandum, 17–18.
12. Ibid., 14.
13. Ibid., 22.
14. Ibid., 28.
15. Sheila Avrin McLean to David Bell and William Carmichael, unpublished mem-
orandum, January 10, 1978, pp. 4–7. Copies were sent to Bell and Carmichael
although this memo was prepared for “The Files.” The Document Number in
the Archives is 011769.
16. Ibid., 7.
17. Ibid., 9–19.
18. Ibid., 27.
19. Ibid., 28.
20. Ibid., 33.
21. Ibid., 34.
22. Ibid., 36.
23. Ibid., 41–42.
24. David Bell to McGeorge Bundy, July 13, 1973. This memorandum is to be
found in the Ford Foundation Archives under Grant File Document Number
PA 73-40A. The request number was ID 1719.
25. Ibid., 3. The specified grant runs nine pages.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., 7.
28. Ibid., 9. Emphasis added.
29. David Bell to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, February 10,
1975. No Grant Number appeared on the front page of the memo, but the
Request Number was given as ID-2200. The responsible program officer was
identified as William Herman.
30. Ibid., 5.
31. Ibid., 10.
N ot e s 287
32. David Bell to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, January 25, 1977.
The Document Number of the memo in the Foundation Archives was 73-40C
and the Request Number was ID 2667. The document runs thirteen
pages.Grants, at times, covered earlier expenditures of grantees.
33. Related to the last was the Parliamentary Internal Security Commission Act of
1976.
34. Ibid., 11.
35. Ibid., 12.
36. David Bell to McGeorge Bundy, unpublished memorandum, April 9, 1979, pp.
1–2. William Carmichael and Sheila McLean were identified now as the respon-
sible program officers. The Foundation Archives Document Number was PA
73-40D and the Request Number was ID-3124.
37. Ibid., 4.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., 5.
40. Ibid., 7.
Chapter 9
1. David Bell to Franklin Thomas, unpublished memorandum, August 29, 1980.
Ford Foundation Archives, Grant File Doc. No. 15. See PA 73-40E in the grant
file of the archives. The Request Number is ID-339. The responsible program
officer is identified as Richard A. Horovitz.
2. Ibid., 3n1. The grant was for eighty-five thousand dollars for two years begin-
ning on August 15, 1980. October 1, 1980, was the date it was officially begun,
but the funds were released earlier. See Ford Foundation Archives Doc. No.
790-024C. The Request No. was ID-3360.
3. Ibid. The grant was spelled out in Ford Foundation Archives File Doc. No. PA-
790-024C.
4. Ford Foundation Archives File Doc. No. 795-0055, p. 3.
5. Ibid., 7.
6. For details, see John Kifner, “From Brooklyn Restoration to Ford Foundation,”
New York Times, s January 30, 1979. Thomas’s appointment was announced on
January 29, one day earlier than the date this article was published.
7. Alexander Heard to the Ford Foundation staff, unpublished memorandum,
January 29, 1979, Ford Foundation Archives.
8. Roger Wilkins, “At Ford Fund: Euphoria over a New Chief,” New York Times, s
January 30, 1977.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid. Significantly, the New York Times assigned Roger Wilkins, the nephew of
NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins, to write the story of the appointment.
11. Kifner, “From Brooklyn Restoration.”
12. Franklin Thomas, interview by the author, May 11, 2003, p. 1.
13. Ibid., 5.
14. Study Commission on U.S. Policy toward Southern Africa, South Africa: Time
Running Out (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
288 N ot e s
15. Pauline Baker, U.S. Study Commission on Southern Africa: An Evaluation for the
Rockefeller Foundation (mimeograph, Ford Foundation Archives, February
1985), 7.
16. Baker, U.S. Study Commission, 5.
17. Ibid.
18. Franklin Thomas, Foreword, to South Africa: Time Running Out, t xi.
19. Study Commission on U.S. Policy toward Southern Africa, Time Running Out,
vii–x.The names of the commissioners and staff as well as contributors preceded
the “Foreword.”
21. Ibid., 6.
22. Ibid., 5.
23. Franklin Thomas, June 4, 1978.
24. Sam Bryan, ed., “Focus on South Africa: Times Running Out,” Intercom, no.
105 (November 1983): 2.
26. Ibid., 9.
27. Ibid., 10.
28. Ibid., 13.
29. See South Africa: Time Running Out; The Study Commission Report on U.S.
Policy Toward Southern Africa (Berkeley: University of California, 1985), 340–456.
The pages embrace chapters 17–19. Also, see Baker, U.S. Study Commission,
14–15.
30. Franklin Thomas, interview by the author with the assistance of Catherine
Fitzpatrick, 9.
31. Ibid.
32. Baker, U.S. Study Commission, 9–10.
33. Ibid., 13.
34. Ibid., 15–16. The letter was dated June 3, 1981, and was signed by Jeffrey B.
Gayner.
36. Ibid.
37. Study Commission on U.S. Policy toward Southern Africa, Time Running Out, t
441–42.
39. Ibid., 3, 7.
40. Gay McDougall, interview by the author, January 9, 2004, p. 7.
41. Ibid., 7.
42. Ibid., 8.
43. Ibid., 4, 6, 8.
45. Ibid., 27.
46. Ibid., 28.
47. Craig Richardson, How Institutions Voted in Shareholder Resolutions in the 1983
Proxy Season (Washington, DC, September 1983), 17.
49. Ibid., 28.
50. Ibid., 41.
N ot e s 289
51. These works comprise the South Africa UPDATE Series. Pauline Baker, The
United States and South Africa: The Reagan Years (New York: Ford Foundation,
1989). The other volumes, each a valuable addition, were Tom Lodge and Bill
Masson, All Here and Now: Black Politics in South Africa in the 1980s (New
York: Ford Foundation, 1991); John Dugard, ed., The Last Years of Apartheid:
Civil Liberties in South Africa (New York: Ford Foundation, 1992); Robert S.
Jastar, et al., Changing Fortunes: War, Diplomacy, and Economics in Southern
Africa (New York: Ford Foundation, 1992); and Robert Schire, Adapt or Die:
The End of White Politics in South Africa (New York: Ford Foundation, 1992).
One of four authors in the fourth volume was Moeletsi Mbeki, who is the
brother of the current president of the South Africa Republic, Thabo Mbeki, a
point emphasized by Franklin Thomas.
52. Franklin Thomas, interview by the author, 3.
53. Ibid., 5.
54. Ibid.
55. Gay McDougall, interview by the author, 6.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid., 8.
58. Ibid., 3.
59. Ibid., 3.
60. Ibid., 5.
61. Ibid., 10.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid., 5.
64. Ibid., 12.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid., 6.
67. Ibid., 11.
68. Ibid., 13.
69. David Bell to Franklin Thomas, unpublished memorandum, July 1, 1982. The
Document Number in the Ford Foundation Archives was DAP 87-840. The
grant was for seventy-five thousand dollars, covering two years beginning on
October 1, 1982. The Request Number was DCP-77. The designated responsi-
ble program officer was Richard Horovitz.
70. Ibid., 9
71. William Carmichael and Susan Berresford to Franklin Thomas, unpublished
memorandum, August 30, 1984, p. 5. These developments and features are pre-
sented in the Ford Foundation Archives Grant File with the Document Number
82-840, which took the form of this memorandum. The grant provided the
Southern Africa Project with a total amount of $210,390 for a two-year period,
beginning October 1, 1984. The responsible program officers were identified as
David Brown Wright and Stephen Marks. The Request Number was DCP-441.
72. Ibid., 7.
73. Ibid., 8–9.
74. Ibid., 4n1–2.
75. Ibid., 8.
76. Ibid., 12.
290 N ot e s
77. Details are provided in the Southern Africa Project Annual Report, South Africa
1986: A Permanent State of Emergency (Washington, DC, Lawyers Committee
for Civil Rights under Law, 1986).
78. Ibid., 12–14.
79. Ibid., 19–27.
80. Ibid., 28–30.
81. Ibid., 30.
82. Les De Villiers, In Sight of Surrender: The U.S. Sanctions Campaign Against
South Africa, 1946-1993 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), 125. De Villiers had
been a high South African government official.
83. Ibid.
84. Time Magazine, June 14, 1993.
85. Ibid.
86. For details see, Tim Wells, “Witnessing Freedom,” The Washington Lawyer
(September–October 1994), 22–32, 57–58.
87. Ibid.
Chapter 10
1. Susan M. Hartmann, The Other Feminist Activists in the Liberal Establishment
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 132.
2. Ford Foundation, Created Equal: The Foundation’s First Steps (New York: Ford
Foundation, Office of Reports, 1986), 14. The study served as a report to the
foundation’s board of trustees.
3. Franklin Thomas, Preface to Created Equal.
4. Hartmann, The Other Feminist Activists in the Liberal Establishment,
t 169.
5. Elinor G. Barber to David Bell, unpublished memorandum, September 30,
1974. Ford Foundation Archives, Document Number 007004.
6. Hartmann, The Other Feminist Activists,s 137.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 135.
9. Ibid., 138–39.
10. Ibid., 142.
11. Ibid., 151–52.
12. Ibid., 132.
13. Ibid., 133.
14. Ibid., 170.
15. Ibid., 171.
16. Ford Foundation, Created Equal: A Report on Ford Foundation Women’s
Programs (New York: Ford Foundation, 1986), 7.
17. International Programs Related to the Status, Role and Opportunities of Women,
25. See Ford Foundation Archive Document 002066, “Information Paper,” for
“Internal Use Only.”
18. Ibid., 19–20.
19. Ibid., 25.
20. Adrienne Germaine to David Bell, interoffice memorandum, “World
Conference of the International Women’s Year, held in Mexico City, June
19–July 2, 1975,” August 6, 1975. The Archives Document is also numbered
N ot e s 291
002066. However, its interoffice character distinguishes it from the foundation

“Internal” Memorandum of November, 1975.
21 Ibid.
22. Ibid., 3.
23. Ibid., 8.
24. See William Korey, Russian Anti-Semitism, Pamyat and the Demonology of
Zionism (Berne: Harwood Academic Press, 1995), 5.
25. “Information Paper,” Foundation Archive Document 002066, 12.
26. Ibid., 1.
27. Ibid., 8.
28. Ibid., 12.
29. Ibid., 17.
30. Ibid., 31.
31. Ford Foundation, Created Equal, l 7.
32. Ibid., 27.
33. Hartmann, The Other Feminist Activists, s 172.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 173.
36. Created Equal, l 27.
37. Hartmann, The Other Feminist Activists, s 173.
38. Ford Foundation, Created Equal, l 29.
39. Ibid., 31.
40. Ibid., 34.
41. Florence Howe, ed., The Politics of Women’s Studies: Testimony from 30
Founding Mothers (New York: Feminist Press, 2000), 357.
42. Ibid., 358.
43. Ibid.
44. Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Women’s Studies, A Perspective, with Susan Heath (New
York: Ford Foundation, 1995), 20–21.
45. Ibid., 20.
46. Ibid., 21. It cited a report in the Columbia University Teachers College Record
(93:7) written by Mariam Chamberlain and Alison Bernstein, both of whom
had long experience with the foundation.
47. Guy-Sheftall, Women’s Studies, s 21.
48. Ibid., 42n84.
49. Ibid. The source was a scholarly study by Chamberlain and Bernstein.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 21.
52. Ibid., 6.
53. For a detailed report, see Devaki Jain and Pam Rajput, eds., Narratives from the
Women’s Studies Family: Recreating Knowledge (New Delhi: Sage, 2003).
54. Ibid., 101.
55. Ibid., 109.
56. Ibid., 230.
57. Ibid., 245. This particular section of the volume was written by Varma.
58. Ibid., 348.
59. Ibid., 325.
60. Ibid., 327. The author of this section, V. S. Elizabeth, was personally very much
involved with the centre.
292 N ot e s
61. Ibid., 41.

62. Ibid., 43.
63. Ibid., 46.
64. Ibid., 49.
65. Ibid., 55.
66. Ibid., 60.
67. Ibid., 61.
Chapter 11
1. Charlotte Bunch, “Growth of Women’s Movements in the U.S. and Third
World,” in The Changing Context for Movements, to Improve Women’s Lives:
Proceedings of the Ford Foundation’s Women’s Program Forum (NewYork: Ford
Foundation, September 29, 1986), 18.
2. Ibid., 123.
3. Judith Evans, George Lamb, Nirmula Murthy, and Frederic Shorter, Women
and Children in Poverty: Reproduction Health and Child Survival (New York:
Ford Foundation, 1987).
4. Ibid., 7, 12, 18.
5. Ibid., 18.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 36.
8. Ibid., 5.
9. Ibid., 39.
10. Ibid., 45.
11. Ibid., 46.
12. International Conference on Human Rights (Tehran, 1968). This work was a
summary of the proceedings of a UN-sponsored human rights conference.
13. Reproductive Health: A Strategy for the 1990s (New York: Ford Foundation,
1991).
14. See Franklin Thomas, Preface to Reproductive Health: A Strategy for the 1990s
(New York: Ford Foundation, 1991), v–vi.
15. Ibid., 11–13.
16. Ibid., 4. Incidentally, as the study notes, “the Ford Foundation played a leading
role in promoting research and attracting other donors to the field [of contra-
ception].”
17. Ibid., 6.
18. Ibid., 9.
19. Ibid., 16.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 17.
22. Ibid., 29.
23. Ibid., 31.
24. Ibid., 32.
25. For an overview from the Ford Foundation’s perspective, see the following Ford
Foundation unpublished interoffice memorandum: September 12, 1996,
“Women’s Program Forum Report on Foundation Activities in Connection
N ot e s 293
with the United Nations’ Fourth Conference on Women and NGO Forum on
Women.” Ford Foundation Archive Document 93-10.
26. Ibid., 2.
27. See William Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A
Curious Grapevine (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 278–302, 387–92.
28. Bunch, “Growth of Women’s Movements.”
29. Alan Divack, phone conversation with the author, September 2, 2005. Divack
was then the foundation’s chief archivist.
30. Charlotte Bunch, “The Intolerable Status Quo: Violence Against Women and
Girls,” in The Progress of Nations (New York: UNICEF, July 1997), 41–49.
31. Felice D. Gaer, “And Never the Twain Shall Meet? The Struggle to Establish
Women’s Rights and International Human Rights at the United Nations” s (draft,
October 4, 1997), 1. The draft was intended for publication later in a book.
Gaer made it available to the author.
32. Ibid., 66–67.
33. Ibid., 75.
34. Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, NGO Newsletter, no. 4 (July 1993).
35. Bunch, “The Intolerable Status Quo,” 45.
36. Gaer, “And Never the Twain,” 84–85.
37. Ibid., 84
38. Bunch, “The Intolerable Status Quo,” 45.
39. Ibid.
40. Felice Gaer, letter written to the author, August 1, 1997.
41. Ibid.
42. Comments on the EC Draft Document for the High level Preparatory Meeting for
the Fourth World Conference on Women (Washington,
( DC: Blaustein Institute
and the International League for Human Rights, September 8, 1994). The
comments were an outgrowth of the conference in Washington, DC, on
September 8, 1994, that was sponsored by the Blaustein Institute and the
International League for Human Rights. Browning and Anne Goldstein were
key figures in preparing the comments. The document was published by the
sponsoring organizations.
43. See Gaer, “And Never the Twain,” 93, 112.
44. Ibid., 112.
45. Felice Gaer to Warren Christopher, January 9, 1995. A copy of the fax was made
available to the author by Felice Gaer.
46. Prior to writing the letter and on the same issue, Gaer had prepared a question-
naire to be used by women’s NGOs in challenging government delegates at the
preparatory regional meeting in Vienna in October. It was sharp and pointed. A
copy was made available to the author. It was summarized in William Korey,
NGOs and the Universal Relevance of Human Rights.
47. Felice Gaer and Rhonda Copelon to Ayala Lasso, July 16, 1995. A copy of the
fax was given to the author.
48. Felice Gaer and Rhonda Copelon to Ayala Lasso, August 18, 1995. The letter
was made available to the author by Gaer.
49. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks for the United Nations Fourth World Conference
on Women, Beijing, China, September 5, 1995, 4–5.
50. Gaer, “And Never the Twain,” 61.
294 N ot e s
51. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History (New York: Simon and Schuster,
2003), 306.
52. Felice Gaer to the author, August 1, 1997.
53. Rebecca Nichols, Women’s Program Forum Report, 8. See Ford Foundation
Archive Document 1995, pp. 93–10.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid., 6.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., 1.
59. Lisa Stearns, “FAP Close-Out Memo,” March 27, 1996, p. 2. The speculative
analysis is to be found in this paper, which was prepared by the Ford
Foundation’s China Office. The author, Lisa Stearns, was the consultant to the
FAP (Foundation Approved Project) for the World Conference on Women. The
document can be found in the Ford Foundation Archives with the Document
Number 0939-0007.
60. Foundation Archives Document 93-10, p. 4.
61. FAP Close-Out Memo. Foundation Archive Document 0939-0007, 34.
62. United Nations, Fourth World Conference on Women, A/Conf.177/20,
October 17, 1995, Annex I, Beijing Declaration, 5–8. This document is located
in the Ford Foundation Archives, Document Number 015606.
63. Susan Berresford, interview by the author, October 19, 2004, p. 7. It was con-
ducted by the author in the office of the foundation’s president.
64. Ibid., 9.
65. Ibid., 5.
66. Lisa Stearns, “FAP Close-Out Memo,” 51.
67. Ibid., 1.
68. Ibid., 2.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid., 8–9.
71. Ibid., 10.
72. Ibid., 13.
73. Ibid., 19.
74. Ibid., 27–28.
75. Ibid., 27–32.
Chapter 12
1. Ford Foundation Annual Report, New York, 2004, p. 152.
2. “Top Funders,” Foundation Center, http://foundationcenter.org/funders/
topfunders/topassets.html (accessed May 9, 2006).
3. Foundation Center, International Grantmaking III (2004), 63.
4. Information on the grant was provided by Jim Moske of the Ford Foundation’s
research unit.
5. David Matas, “Civil Society Smashes Up” (mimeograph, Durban, South Africa,
September 2001), http://www.caretowear/smashesup.html, 23
6. UN Press Release, SG/SM/6504, March 25, 1998, p. 4.
7. Ibid.
N ot e s 295
8. Phoebe Eng, unpublished memorandum, “Closing Memorandum: UN World

Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Religious
Intolerance (the WCAR),” October 16, 2001. The memo in the file is identified
with Document Number 015571. Designed for the Ford Foundation files, it
described itself as “a general summary” of the “Foundation preparations.”
9. Ibid.
10. Memorandum of Alan Jenkins to Anthony Romero, in Ford Foundation Grant
Report, June 18, 2001. The Request Number for the grant was 0007133. While
the approval date for the grant was June 18, 2001, funding had clearly begun
the previous October.
11. Eng, unpublished memorandum, 1.
12. David Matas, “Civil Society Smashes Up,” 17.
13. Ibid.
14. Harris Schoenberg, “Demonization in Durban: The World Conference Against
Racism,” in American Jewish Yearbook 2002 (New York: American Jewish
Committee, 2002), 97. For specific details, see the Internet reports put out by
ICARE, a Dutch NGO, headed by Ronald Eissens. ICARE, http//www.icare.to/
wear/ (accessed October 8, 2001) 2–3.
15. Catherine Fitzpatrick, “Durban/Dur-dom,” unpublished memorandum, 21.
This document was later sent out on the Internet. The author used the draft
copy before it was sent out. Fitzpatrick shared it with the author. A noted
Russian translator and scholar on Soviet Affairs, Fitzpatrick is currently an advo-
cacy director for Physicians for Human Rights.
16. Gay McDougall, “World Conference against Racism, Through a Wider Lens,
Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 26 (Summer–Fall 2002).
17. Schoenberg, “Demonization in Durban,” 86n2, 103.
18. Ibid., 15.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 16.
21. Tom Lantos, “The Durban Debacle: An Insider’s View of the UN World
Conference Against Racism,” The Fletcher Forum on World Affairs 26
(Winter–Spring 2002), 46.
22. See Edwin Black, “Anti-Israel Activist at Durban Funded by Ford Foundation,”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily Bulletin (October 17, 2003).
23. Susan Berresford, interview by the author, October 19, 2004, 16.
24. Ibid.
25. JTA Daily Bulletin, October 17, 2003.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.Black, JTA, October 16, 2003.
28. Edwin Black, article in Forward, October 17, 2003.
29. Nacha Cattan, “Probe Demanded by Ford Foundation Funding,” Forward,
October 24, 2003.
30. Ibid.
31. Joe Bekofsky, JTA Daily Bulletin, November 4, 2003.
32. Edwin Black, “Ford Takes Steps to Reverse Funding for Anti-Israel Groups,”
JTA Daily Bulletin, December 18, 2003.
33. “Doing the Right Thing,” Jewish Week, November 21, 2003. This organ is the
largest community organ in the United States.
34. Larry Cox, interview by the author, May 2, 2005, 17–20.
296 N ot e s
35. See Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the EU 2002–2003 (Brussels: European

Union, 2004). This excellent, massive 343–page document was published by
the European Union in 2004. Also, see JBI, After the Promise: Keeping OSCE
Commitments to Combat Anti-Semitism (New York: Jacob Blaustein Institute
for the Advancement of Human Rights, April 2004). This document contains
fifty-three pages.
36. ADL Press Release, “Harnessing Technology to Combat Bias and Build
Respect,” available at http://www.aol.org/presroele/education.01/490300.htm
(accessed April 24, 2001).
37. The Ford Foundation Archives Document File Number is 10100657. The
Request Number is given as 0005759. Formally, the “grantee” is identified as
the Tides Center of San Francisco, California, which was used by the Ford
Foundation. Larry Cox of the foundation was identified as the “responsible pro-
gram officer.” Cox, in the spring of 2006, became head of Amnesty
International, USA.
38. See Tamar Lewin, “For Nations Traumatized by the Past, New Remedies,” New
York Times, s July 26, 2001; and Lynda Richardson, “Helping Countries and
People to Heal,” New York Times, s November 23, 2001.
39. Priscilla B. Hayner, The Foundation: Transitional Justice Meeting, April 6, 2000
(mimeograph, discussion paper). See Ford Foundation Archives Document File
Number 014016.
40. Priscilla B. Hayner, Advancing the Field of Transitional Justice: Assessments and
Recommendations Report to the Ford Foundation (October 11, 1999), 13. The
paper was for “Internal Distribution Only.”
41. Richardson, “Helping Countries and People.”
42. Ibid.
43. Tina Rosenberg, “The Year in Ideas,” New York Times Magazine, December 9,
2001.
44. See Tamar Lewin, “For Nations Traumatized,” New York Times, s July 29, 2001.
45. Alan Jenkins to Susan Berresford, grant recommendation, October 29, 2003.
See Ford Foundation Archives Document Number 1020-0974-1.
46. Ibid.
47. Hayner, The Foundation: Transitional Justice Meeting,g April 6, 2000.
48. Alex Wilde, interview by the author, January 12, 2005.
49. Alex Boraine, interview by the author, October 22, 2004.
50. Hayner, The Foundation: Transitional Justice Meeting,g 6–8.
51. Samuel Totten, “Non-Governmental Organizations Working on the Issue of
Genocide,” in The Widening Circle of Genocide, by Israel Charney, vol. 3, chap.
14, Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review (New Brunswick: Transaction
Press, 1994), 5.
52. Barbara Harff and Ted Robert Gurr, “Toward Empirical Theory of Genocides
and Patricides: Identification and Measurement of Cases since 1945,”
International Studies Quarterly, 1988, no. 32:359–71.
53. See Ford Foundation Archives Grant File Number PA 0960-0574, April 5,
1996, p. 5.
54. William Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A
Curious Grapevine (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 527–31.
55. The author visited the World Federalist headquarters when he interviewed
William Pace.
N ot e s 297
56. Ibid., 530.

57. Shepard Forman to Susan Berresford, April 4, 1996, 1. See Ford Foundation
Archives Grant File Number PA 0960-0574. The grant was to run for one year.
The foundation’s program officer for the grant was Larry Cox.
58. Ibid., 6.
60. Benjamin Ferencz, interview by the author, December 11, 1997.
62. Priscilla Hayner, interview by the author, March 29, 2002.
63. Anthony Romero, interview by the author and Catherine Fitzpatrick, May 12,
2003.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.
66. Susan Berresford, interview by the author, October 19, 2004.
67. Lauren Foster, “Can the Truth Heal a Nation’s Wounds?” Financial Times
(London), June 16–17, 2001.
68. Alan Jenkins to Susan Berresford, October 29, 2003, memorandum, Ford
Foundation Archives Grant File Number 1020-0074-2 (Request Number is
0019566). The “responsible program officer” in the grant is identified as Larry
Cox. The grant was to be three million dollars, from September 15, 2004, for
twelve months.
69. Ibid., 2.
70. Ibid., 3.
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Index
“1980 Budget,” 36, 37 Argentine anti-Semitism, 56

Argentine Centre for Urban and
“A Call for U.S. Leadership,” 70 Regional Studies, 56
abortion, 233 Arnold, Millard, 186
ADL’s “A World of Difference,” 258 Asia and Africa Regional Offices, 230
African-American Institute, 166, 177 Asian NGO Forum, 237
African Training and Research Centre Astor, David, 123
for Women, 213 Aylwin, Patricio, 86
Afrikaans language issue, 169
All-Chinese Women’s Federation, 246 Baker, Pauline, 191, 193–97
Allende, Salvador, 26, 30, 31, 54 Baldwin, Neil, 5
Allport, Gordon, 142 Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Almeyda, Clodomiro, 31, 32 Committee, 229
American Bar Association, 148, 171, banning process in South Africa, 168
182, 239 Bantustans, 150, 151
America’s Watch, 77–85, 115, 116
Barber, Elinor, 212
Amnesty International, 2, 39, 41, 42,
Bedford-Stuyvesant, 187, 188, 189
44, 49, 50, 71, 74, 90, 94, 106,
Beijing Declaration, 244, 246
157, 161, 163, 177, 200, 251, 265
Beijing Limitations on NGOs, 240
Annan, Kofi, 250, 269
Beijing NGO Forum, 242
annual program review, 109
Beijing Office Impact on Chinese
anti-Semitism: at Durban NGO Forum,
Women, 246
251; in Western Europe, 257, 258
apartheid, 23, 86, 139, 140, 142, 145, Beijing World Conference on Women’s
147–56, 158, 162–65, 167, Rights, 234
169–73, 175, 176, 178, 182, 183, Beirut University (Lebanon), 213
185, 189–94, 197, 199, 200–203, Belgrade Review Meeting (CSCE), 92,
205, 206, 210, 215, 218, 250, 93
252, 254, 255, 268 Bell, David, 32, 35, 36, 39, 47, 52, 148,
Arab Lawyers’ Union, 251 149, 164, 169, 179, 185, 212,
archival documentation in Chile and 214, 215
Argentina, 262 Bell, Peter, 26, 30–35
Argentina, 2, 3, 26, 27, 29, 55, 57–61, Bennett, Harry, 5, 6
63–66, 74–76, 79, 85, 152, 173, Bernstein, Robert 77, 97
234, 262, 263 Berresford, Susan, 74, 79, 120, 211,
Argentina Forensic Anthropology Team, 219, 238, 245; on Durban,
263 253–59, 261, 266–68
308 Index
Beylin, Marek, 120, 127 84, 85, 86, 89, 93, 134, 152, 173,
Biko, Steve, 169, 170, 186 206, 262, 263
“black consciousness” movement, 151, Chilean Human Rights Commission,
170 55, 64, 65, 84
Black, Edwin, 254 Chilean intellectuals, 27, 28
black industrial workers, 172 Chilean Truth Commission, 263
black lawyers in South Africa, 186, 200 China (Beijing) Office of Ford
Black Sash, 174, 202 Foundation, 246, 247
Bonner, Elena, 99 “Circuit-Riding” Foundation staff
Boraine, Alex, 262, 267–69 members, 226
Botswana, 152, 155, 156, 161, 162, Civic Forum, 92
165, 167, 168, 173 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 241
Brandt, Willy, 32 CNN, 197, 198
Brazil, 2, 27, 38, 63, 74, 76, 79, 213, Coalition for an International Criminal
224, 225 Court, 263, 265
Brookings Institution, 166 Coleman, Peter, 121
Browning, Lea, 239 Committee of Workers; Defense
Bruno Kreisky Prize, 128, 129 (KOR), 91
Buergenthal, Tom, 81 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid
Bullock, Alan, 124 Act, 206
Bunch, Charlotte, 235, 236, 238 Compton, Karl T., 7
Bundy, McGeorge, 18, 31, 32, 35, 60,
Conference of African Organizations, 151
79, 81, 96–101,104–9, 126,
Conference on Security and
146–48, 154, 179, 185, 188, 210,
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), 89
211, 212, 218, 221
Conference Planning Group, 242
Bushey, Bruce, 73, 74, 93, 95, 100,
confronting America’s legal community,
102, 103, 105–9
175, 176
Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez, 54 Congress for Cultural Freedom, 17, 49,
Carlson, Joel, 148, 199 121–24, 127, 129
Carmichael, William, 26, 30, 47, 55, Congressional Record, 199
61, 64, 67, 74, 81, 169, 196 Continuation Committee of South
Carter, Jimmy, 92, 96, 161, 187, 188 Africa, 141
Castro, Fidel, 257 contraception, 229
Center for Legal and Social Services, 66 contract system for labor, 150
Center for Women’s Development Cooney, Thomas, 188
Studies (India), 224 Coordinating Committee on Women,
Center for Women’s Global Leadership, 212, 214, 218, 219
237 Copelon, Rhonda, 240
Centre for Women and Law, The Copenhagen NGO Forum on
(India), 224 Women, 222
Chamberlain, Mariam K., 221 Costa-Gavras, Constantine, 32, 33
“Charter 77,” 92, 97, 111, 113, 115, Council of Foreign Relations, 72, 166
135 Cox, Eugene, 19
Chaskelson, Arthur, 171 Cox, Larry, 257
Chekhov Publishing House, 16 Cracow Conference (1991), 137
child survival, 229, 230 Crahan, Margaret, 63–67, 85
Chile, 2, 22, 23, 25–39, 48, 52, 54, 55, Curtis, Neville, 151
57, 59–65, 67, 69, 71, 72, 74, 76, Czechoslovak Helsinki Committee, 92
Index 309
Daedalus,s 166 223, 231; Brussels Conference on

Dearborn Independent, t 5 Anti-Semitism, 258; “Closing
deaths in detention in South Africa, 202 Memorandum” on Durban
“Declaration of Mexico,” 214 (Phoebe Eng), 253, 254; Faculty
Der Monat, t 17, 122 Fellowship Program on Women,
Dhaka regional office, 213 221; human rights grants, 249;
Dienstbier, Jiri, 92 International Division, 214;
distributing lists of South African International Division Conference
detainees, 199 on Women, 216; investment port-
Donnelly, Jack, 2 folio, 249; involvement with
Du Toit, André, 169 Durban, 250; Middle East and
Dugard, John, 157, 171 Africa Division, 148, 154, 163,
Durban and anti-Semitism, 249 166, 167, 168, 175; origin, 4;
Durban Jewish Club, 252 regional office of Nairobi, 152;
Durban World Conference Against wealth, 7
Racism, 249 Ford, Henry, 4–6
Durban’s NGO Forum, 250, 256; draft Ford, Henry, II, 5, 7–11, 19, 20, 147
declaration of, 252 Foreign Affairs,
s 2, 12, 151, 193
Dutch Reformed Churches, 141 Foreign Policy Association, 197
Dye, Richard, 55–59 Forman, Shepard, 77, 79, 117, 119
“Forum 85,” 226
East European Fund, 12, 15, 16, 17
Forward, 254–56
East Germany, 4, 89, 134, 135
Foundation for European Intellectual
Economic Commission of Europe, 239
Cooperation (FEIE), 119, 120,
Edwards, Robert, 37, 162, 163–68,
124–37
171, 179
Fox, Melvin, 141–44
Eldridge, Joseph, 72
Emmanuel, Pierre, 124, 127, 129 Foxman, Abraham, 255
Encounter, 17, 122 Fraser, Donald, 70
Ennals, Martin, 163 Fredericks, Wayne, 149, 154
Erasmus Prize, 129 Free University of Berlin, 15
“Estadio Nacional,” 34 Frei, Eduardo, 26
Friedberg, Maurice, 110
Fagen, Richard, 30, 31 Friendly, Alfred, Jr., 98
Falk, Pamela, 82 Fulbright, William, 30
Farer, Tom, 81 Fund for Free Expression, 77, 83, 98,
Fascell, Dante, 96, 98 99, 101–4, 108
Federal Missionary Council, 141
Federal Theological Seminary, 174 Gaer, Felice, 95, 98, 102, 104, 131,
FEIE and Iberian fascist dictators, 129 239, 240, 241
Feminist Press, 222 Gaither, H. Rowan, 8, 9, 10, 13, 19,
Ferencz, Benjamin, 266 20, 140
Fishlow, David, 103 Gardner, James, 37
Fitzpatrick, Catherine, 115, 252 genocide and crimes against humanity,
Ford, Edsal, 5 264
Ford Foundation: Annual Report, t 20, Genocide Convention, 21, 266
21, 47, 61, 69, 78, 203; board of Germaine, Adrienne, 214, 215
trustees, 7, 8, 10, 20, 47, 50, 51, Gershman, Carl, 95
54, 61, 107, 147, 153, 187, 188, Global Tribunal on Violations of
189, 190, 210, 211, 212, 219, Women’s Human Rights, 238
310 Index
Goldberg, Ambassador Arthur, 109, impact of “Basket 3,” 53, 90, 92,
110, 113 115, 116
Gonzalez, Alejandro, 54 improvement in women’s economic
Grameen Bank and small loans to opportunities, 233
women, 224 Independent Electoral Commission, 206
Grant, Stephanie, 106 India universities on women’s rights, 223
grants for domestic workers, 221 inquest into death of Biko, 170
grants on rural women to third world Institute for Democracy, 262
universities, 220 Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna),
Greece, 29 120
Greenleaf, William, 16 Inter-American Association for
Guatemala Truth Commission, 262, 263 Democracy and Freedom, 78
Gulf & Western, 171 Internal Security Act of 1982, 201
Guy-Sheftall, Beverley, 223 International Association for Cultural
Freedom, 18, 43, 48, 122, 127
Hakim, Peter, 33 International Center for Transitional
Harkin, Tom, 71, 72 Justice, 259, 266, 268
Hathaway, David, 30 International Commission of Jurists, 1,
Havel, Vaclav, 92, 115, 116 39, 42, 51, 70, 163, 265
Hayner, Priscilla, 260, 261, 262, 266, International Committee of Red Cross,
267 36, 41, 42, 162, 163, 167, 172, 180
Heald, Henry, 20 International Court of Justice, 81, 150
Heaps, David, 35–45, 47–53, 61, 93, International Criminal Court Monitor,
111, 123, 124, 126, 161–63, 167, 265
172, 173, 177 International Division, Population
Heard, Alexander, 188, 190 Office, 209, 214
“Helsinki and Human Rights,” 94, 99 International Helsinki Federation, 91, 114
Helsinki Final Act, 23, 53, 89, 90–93, International Law Commission, 264
95, 896, 102, 107, 109, 111, 114, International League for Human
115, 119, 123, 130, 135, 218 Rights, 44, 47, 94, 252
Heritage Foundation, 193, 194 international tribunals, 264
Heuvel, William vanden, 102 International University Exchange
Hicks, Peggy, 261 Fund, 162
Higgins, Roslyn, 22 “inviolability of borders,” 89
historical memory, 264
Hoffman, Paul, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, Jarrar, Allam, 255
19, 20 Jaruzelski, Wojciech, 92, 134
Homeland University faculties, 159, 174 Jarvis, Lovell, 33
Horman, Charles, 30–33 Jelenski, Konstantin, 121–25, 127, 129,
Horman, Joyce, 33 130, 131, 134
House Un-American Activities Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), 254–56
Committee, 18 Jewish Week, 256
Huairou site obstacles, 243 (Johannesburg) Center for the Study of
human rights, 1 Violence and Reconciliation, 262
human rights in Latin America, 61 Jordon, Vernon, 147, 188
Human Rights Watch, 93, 103, 116,
117, 174, 249, 261, 265, 266 Kaiser, Paul J., 140
“human welfare” goal, 9, 269 Kampelman, Max, 110
Hutchins, Robert Maynard, 12, 15, 16, Kebir, Sandra, 229
17, 19 Kennan, George, 12, 13, 17
Index 311
Kennedy, John F., 146 McCarthy, Kathleen, 16

Kennedy, Robert, 187 McCarthyism, 18
Kentridge, Felicia, 172 McDermott, Niall, 43, 163
Kentridge, Sydney, 171 McDougall, Gay, 193, 195–97, 200,
Keyes, Alan L., 215 205, 206, 252
Kissinger, Henry, 30, 31, 33, 38 McLean, Sheila Avrin, 154, 161, 162,
Kline, Edward, 99 169, 210
Koestler, Arthur, 121 McNamara, Robert, 32
Kolakowski, Leszek, 129, 137 Memorial Museum of the History of
Kultura, 122, 129 Repression (Russia), 263
Kuper, Leo, 21 Mendez, Juan, 82, 269
Mexico City Office of Ford Foundation,
Labedz, Leopold, 122 62, 63
Laber, Jeri, 99, 102, 103, 105, 110, Mignone, Emilio, 66
112, 113, 114 Miller, Arthur, 18, 103
Laborey, Annette, 120, 126, 127, 130, Minority Rights Group, 21, 43
133, 134, 135, 137 Mohapi, Mohle, 186
Lagergren Nina, 112 money transfers into South Africa, 199
Lantos, Tom, 253, 255 Morgenthau, Hans, 2
Latin American Social Science Council Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, 97,
(CLASCO), 56 100, 113, 116
LAW, 254–56, 262 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 66, 76
Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights Munoz-Najar, Antonio, 82
under Law, 139, 146, 147, 152, Muofhe death case, 201
153, 156, 167, 171, 174, 185, Myers, Desaix, III, 170
193, 198, 206; cases before
American courts, 178; “clearing Nadler, Jerrold, 255, 256
house,” 178; cooperation with Nairobi Conference, 229
other NGOs, 177; critical sub- Nairobi NGO Forum on Women, 222
group of, 186; detainees under Namibia, 150, 151, 176–78, 180,
repressive acts of state, 172, 173; 181, 204
funding of, 179 Natal University Institute of Social
“legal clinics,” 171 Research, 142
Legal Resources Centre, 185 National Conference on Human Rights,
Lemkin, Raphael, 21 93, 94
Lesotho, 156, 165, 173 National Conference on Women’s
Lillich, Richard, 100 Studies (Bombay), 223
Lima Foundation, 62 National Nutrition Research Institute,
Lima regional office, 82, 83 144
limiting population growth, 232 National Organization for Women
Liskofsky, Sidney, 106 (NOW), 212
NATO, 112, 115
Macdonald, Dwight, 9, 10, 13, 15, 20 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 15
Madrid follow-up meeting, 92, 108, 111 Neier, Aryeh, 77–85, 103–5, 109,
major foundation grant recipients, 249 115, 261
Management Assistance Group, 116 “Never Again,” 1, 3
Mandela, Nelson, 4, 139, 189, 205–7 New York City Council, 197
Manitzas, Nita Rous, 59, 60 New York Review of Books,s 113, 194
massive NGO participation at Beijing, 243 New York Times,s 17, 30, 33, 40, 113,
Matas, David, 251 115, 176, 178, 188, 193, 249,
312 Index
New York Times—continued. “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” 5,

259, 261; Book Review, 193; 251
discriminatory ads, 176 publications of South African Truth
New York Times Magazine, 261 Commission, 262
New York University Law School, 262 Puryear, Jeffrey, 26, 33, 64, 67, 81,
NGOs in Eastern Europe, 123 82, 85
Nichols, Rebecca, 242
Nkrumah, Kwame, 29 Qing, Wu, 248
“No Peace Without Justice,” 265 Quoboza, Percy, 168
O’Brien, Conor Cruise, 194 Reagan, Ronald, 77, 78, 194, 205
Oppenheimer, Harry, 158 Reece, Carroll, 19
origin and background of Durban rent boycotts in Soweto, 204
Conference, 250 reproduction health, 231
Orlov, Yuri, 90, 115, 116 Ridgway, Roz, 110
Ovambos, 150 Robinson, Mary, 253
Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, 183
Pace, William, 265 Rockefeller Foundation, 10, 13, 166,
Palestine NGO Network (PNGO), 255 189–91, 193, 194, 197
Paris conference about Solidarity, 137 Romero, Anthony, 259, 261, 266
Parliamentarians for Global Action, 263 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1
“pass laws,” 144, 145, 151, 157, 171 Roth, Kenneth, 117
Peng, Li, 243 rural women foundation grant
Pentagon opposition to ICC statute, 266 programs, 219
Phelps-Stokes Fund, 166 Rustin, Bayard, 93–95
Picken, Margo, 67, 69, 119, 120
Pinochet, Augusto, 3, 25, 27, 28, 30, Saint, William, 67, 82
31, 32, 34, 54, 55, 60, 67, 84, 85, Sakharov, Andrei, 36, 41, 96, 99,
86, 89, 161 113, 116
Plesu, Andreas, 135 Salzberg, John, 70, 72
Polaroid, 170 Sampson, Anthony, 193
Polish dissidents’ “manifesto,” 91 Sanctions Monitoring Group, 205
Polish Helsinki Committee, 92 Saturday Evening Post, t 17
political prisoners, 36, 37, 40, 42, 49, Schell, Orville, 78, 80, 103
50, 52, 66, 148, 157, 170, 205 Schlemmer, Lawrence, 169, 173
Pollack, Louis, 171, 182 Schwarzenberg, Karl, 115
Popper, David, 29, 33, 38 Scranton, William, 110
population explosion, 231–32 Self-Employed Women’s Association
post-Nairobi programs, 226 (SEWA), 230
“Prague Spring, The,” 135 Sharpeville, 150, 151
preparatory UN women’s conferences, Shcharansky, Anatoly, 90, 112
234 significance of foundation concerning
Presidential Review in annual report, 61 women’s rights, 230
Price, Don, 21 Silvert, Kalman, 29, 32
“Principle VII,” 53, 89, 92 Sklar, Mort, 95, 100
pro bono contributions by U.S. law Smock, David, 126, 144
firms, 176 Soedjatmoko, 50, 55, 57, 58
Progressive Reform Party, 170 solidarity, 91, 92, 97, 111, 114, 115,
“protection” for Helsinki groups in East 120, 132, 134, 136, 137, 157, 187
Europe, 100 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 90, 132
Index 313
sources of funding of Southern Africa Study Commission on U.S. Policy

Project, 201 toward Southern Africa, The, 166,
South Africa and the UN’s Universal 193, 195, 196
Declaration of Human Rights, 140, Study Committee of Foundation, 9–12
237, 250 “Sullivan Principles,” 192
South Africa: Time Running Out, t Sutton, Francis X., 13, 14, 31, 35, 49,
166, 189 51, 52, 53, 73, 98, 100, 101, 105,
South Africa UPDATE Series, 197 108–11, 119, 120, 123, 126, 127,
South African Airways, 176, 178, 129, 131
205, 206 Sviridoff, Mitchell, 209
South African Black Trade Unions, 185
South African Council of Churches, Task Force on Women, 212, 219
156, 172, 185 Teheran Conference on Human Rights
South African Institute on Race (1968), 231
Relations, 140, 141, 180, 181, 221 “Terror and the Truth” (documentary),
South Africa’s “Homeland” policy, 155 263
South Africa’s Internal Security Law, terrorism and the suppression of com-
156, 159 munist acts, 159
South Africa’s National Institute for Teruggi, Frank, 30
Personnel Research, 144 third world countries’ priority, 11
South Africa’s Terrorism Act, 146, 148 Thomas, Franklin, 60, 68, 69, 80, 81,
South West Africa, 146, 150 185, 196, 197, 202, 209, 219,
Southern Africa Project, 139, 156, 167, 231, 245
171, 174, 177–83, 185, 186, 189, Timerman, Jacobo, 77
193, 195–98, 200, 202, 203, 204 transitional justice, 259, 261
Southern African Refugees, 173 Trubek Proposal, 38
Southern Africa’s project on detention, Truth Commission, 262
Namibia, and press freedom, 205 Tulley, Mary Jean, 212
Southern Africa’s project on lobbying Tutu, Desmond, 268
congress, 205
Southern Africa’s project’s 1987 UN Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts
Annual Report, t 203 on Southern Africa, 202
Southern Cone, 27, 35, 36, 56, 57, 59, UN Commission on Human Rights,
62, 63, 67, 74, 87 1, 22, 39, 96, 186, 202, 239,
Soweto, 151, 154–56, 163, 164, 168, 240, 244
169, 179, 20 UN Conference on Racism (Durban),
Soweto pupils’ strike, 169 13, 215, 249
Spangenberg, Gail, 211 UN Conference on Women in Nairobi
Special Sub-Committee of Lawyers (1985), 226
Committee on Civil Rights, 176 UN Decade for Women, 221
Staff Working Paper on Women (1972), UN General Assembly, 215, 236,
216 250, 264
Stalin, Josef, 2 UN General Assembly Fourth
“state of emergency” of 1986, 199 Committee on Trusteeships, 205
statute for international criminal UN High Commissioner for Human
court, 266 Rights Ayala Lasso, 240
Stearns, Lisa, 243 UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
Stoltenberg, Thorwald, 114 15, 16, 56, 58, 59, 162, 180,
Stone, Shepard, 18, 124 235, 269
314 Index
UN Office of the High Commissioner Walesa, Lech, 91

for Human Rights, 257 Wall Street Journal,
l 85
UN Trust Fund, 182, 202 Ward, Champion, 123
UN Watch, 254 Washington, DC, City Council, 197
UN World Conference on Women’s Washington Office on Latin America
Rights in Mexico City, 213, 226 (WOLA), 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 85
UN’s Fourth World Conference on Washington Working Group on the
Women, 234 Human Rights of Women, 239
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Wheeler, John, 142
22, 41, 44, 47, 50, 53, 101, 140, Wiesel, Elie, 249
237, 250 Wilde, Alex, 256, 261, 279
University of Dar es Salaam, 213 Wilkins, Roger, 188
University of Natal Law School, 152 Wilson, Francis, 173
University of Notre Dame, 263, 269 Wreden, Nicholas, 16
University of Witwatersrand Centre for Writers and Publishers for European
Applied Legal Studies, 185 Cooperation, 122
University of Witwatersrand Law Women and Development Unit (at
School, 171 University of West Indies),
Uruguay, 2, 27, 29, 55, 59, 60, 76, 224, 225
222, 266 “Women in the World,” 219, 226
U.S. Agency for International women issues in third world, 220
women studies programs at universities,
Development, 194, 231
221, 222
U.S. Commission on Security and
Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, 263
Cooperation in Europe, 96, 98
women’s earning capacity, 230
U.S. corporate practices in South Africa,
women’s health education, 233
168
women’s health issues in third world, 225
U.S. Helsinki Watch, 43, 77, 79, 93,
women’s NGOs activism at Beijing, 240
98, 99, 101–9, 111–16, 119, 174,
Women’s Program Forum, 229, 241–45
252, 260
Women’s Program Group, 219, 226
U.S. role in Latin America, 73
women’s study programs in Africa, 225
U.S.–South Africa Leadership Woods, Donald, 168
Exchange, 142, 145 World, The, 168
World Council of Churches, 140, 163,
Van Zyl, Paul, 261, 267
177, 201
Varma, Rameshwari, 223
World Federalist Movement, 266
“Velvet Revolution,” 92, 135
Wortman, Stanley, 191
Verwoerd, Hendrik, 142
Vicariate (Santiago, Chile), 86 Xiaojiang, Li, 248
Vicariate of the Archbishop of
Santiago, 263 Young, Andrew, 158
Vienna NGO Forum, 237
Vienna UN Human Rights Zimmermann, Warren, 111
Conference, 235 Zionism, 215, 250, 251, 257
Violence Against Women, 237 “Zionism equals racism,” 250
“What a thrilling and exciting work is Dr. William Korey’s new study
of the Ford Foundation’s international human rights policy and
program. Anyone interested in human rights will find his analysis
enormously rewarding and instructive. An unparalleled resource.”
—Seymour D. Reich,
Past President,
B’nai B’rith International
Taking on the World’s Repressive Regimes is a comprehensive and

unprecedented history of the Ford Foundation’s support of human
rights projects. It illuminates the Foundation’s extraordinary role in
helping undermine and destroy major repressive authoritarian and
totalitarian regimes during the latter part of the twentieth century,
while at the same time playing a critical role in advancing women’s
rights. William Korey traces Foundation activities in Latin America,
Eastern Europe, South Africa, and elsewhere, and assesses its
importance in making human rights a primary concern of
contemporary civilization.
Williiam Korey is a human rights scholar who has taught at various

colleges, including Columbia University and Yeshiva University. He is
also a former director of the international policy and research
department of B’nai B’rith. He is the author of several books, including
The Soviet Cage, The Promises We Keep p, and NGOs and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rightss, as well as over one hundred human
rights articles and op-eds in prominent journals and major newspapers.

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Taking on the World’s Repressive Regimes

Taking on the World’s Repressive Regimes:

First published in 2007 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the

ISBN 978-1-349-52658-1 ISBN 978-0-230-60874-0 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Korey, William, 1922–

1. Human rights. 2. Ford Foundation—History. I. Title.

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Scribe Inc.

First edition: August 2007

1 Origins and Background 1

2 Chile: A Breakthrough in Foundation Policy 25

3 Foundation Policy across Latin America 47

4 The “Human Rights Lobby” 69

5 U.S. Helsinki Watch: The Foundation in Eastern Europe 89

6 The “Foundation for European Intellectual Cooperation” 119

7 Taking Risks on South Africa 139

8 The Rejection of “Fatalism” 161

9 A Historic Role 185

10 Women’s Rights: “A Position of Empowerment” 209

11 From Nairobi to Beijing 229

12 A Stumble and Strides Forward 249

in a position to be helpful. And he has performed that function once again,

of repression, so characteristic of totalitarian Eastern Europe, would now

Dearborn Independent of the most notorious of anti-Semitic publications,

instrument. A major historian of the Ford Motor Company called Bennett’s

Kennan-administered fund, unlike the other foundation funds, was located

official, Francis X. Sutton, who became a vice-president of the organization.

projects would become standard for the foundation operations in Third

of humanity—with food, shelter, and clothing—fell on the UN High

it also attempted to halt the loss or destruction of irreplaceable cultural mate-

and the Reece Committee itself became a target of national amusement by

T he date September 11 resonated profoundly in Latin America long before

additional grant of one hundred thousand dollars to help these intellectuals

movement on the continent, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, had transformed his

Popper, was severely chastised by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when he

It was a “small platoon” of NGOs whose “members are pitifully few,”

Although the ICJ had earlier enjoyed an eminent career in advancing

T he Draft Report by David Heaps, along with his earlier memorandum,

to support organizations combating those abuses. On the latter point, Bell

statement was an awkward reformulation that, initially, had been advanced

major subject of public concern, weighing more heavily on international affairs

thirty-nine persons, including twelve lawyers and a number of social workers

Africa. It was this reality that prompted him to welcome a harmonization of

driven by intellectual freedom and human rights. First, through a package

Foundation’s international policy.52 That naturally followed from the fact

remarkably well-versed on the three areas and extremely knowledgeable about

Academy of Christian Humanism, however, was especially intriguing. This

field in Argentina “unless institutionalizing the protection of human rights is

specifically, European church sources to provide funds for the education of

Franklin Thomas’s comments in the 1980 Annual Report of the Ford

Fraser. International NGOs were praised in the report as “a vital contributor

The assault upon traditional executive prerogatives continued into 1976

In my opinion, the Washington Office on Latin America is one of the half-

Elsewhere in his comments, he wrote, “[WOLA] has a reputation as the

The contracting function was hardly an academic exercise. During 1983,

It was to this “dual-level approach” that a critical foundation decision,

expectations probably [exceeded] our enthusiasm” about the proposal as

and orchestrating efforts to make U.S. foreign policy more responsive to

While a major proposed objective of Americas Watch was to “maintain an

D evelopments in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America beginning in 1973

to totalitarian regimes was the inclusion of Basket 3, which emphasized the