Leo Cherne

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Leo Cherne (1912-1999) was an American lawyer, economist and businessman.[1]

Early Career

Cherne founded the Research Institute of America in the late 1930s, providing business executives with advice about new deal regulations.[2] In 1938 he hired the young William Casey.[3]

Cherne visited England, France and Germany in early 1945. Travelling undercover as a correspondent for the Overseas News Agency, he was actually surveying the situation for White House assistant David Niles.[4]

General Douglas MacArthur took Cherne to Japan at the end of World War Two to advise on the country's economic recovery.[5]

Cherne joined the board of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in 1946.[6]

At a dinner announcing the formation of the Iron Curtain Refugee Campaign in December 1950, right-winger Arthur Bliss Lane attacked the IRC, accusing Cherne of 'pussyfooting' on communism.[7]

After IRC chairman Reinhold Niebuhr had a stroke on 16 January, Cherne took over his role.[8]At a press conference in April that year, Cherne warned that the IRC would cease functioning by 15 May unless it raised $250,000.[9]

IRC chairman

Cherne officially took over as IRC chairman in January 1953.[10] Following the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Cherne sought a meeting with the new President's CIA chief, Allen Dulles, who told him that he had been receiving reports on the IRC from two fellow OSS veterans on its board, William Casey and Albert Jolis, but that its work was "somewhat outside the scope of our proper activities."[11]

Cherne travelled to West Berlin to meet Mayor Ernst Reuter in the wake of the June 1953 uprising in the East.[12]

Cherne met Eisenhower's psychological warfare advisor C.D. Jackson in August 1953. Jackson consulted Tom Braden, who agreed with him in being uncomfortable with Cherne's style.[13]

Cherne visited West Berlin again in October 1953 with Richard Salzmann. On their return they met C.D. Jackson and urged him to consider possible support and uses for rioters who had escape to West Berlin. Jackson passed on the suggestion to the CIA's Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner.[14]

Cherne debated Senator Joseph McCarthy on the radio in 1953. Although himself an anti-communist Cherne strongly challenged McCarthy's methods.[15]

In 1954, Cherne undertook a fact-finding tour of Vietnam. His subsequent cable to the US Foreign Operations Administration recognised the corruption and weakness of the Ngo Dinh Diem government , but concluded that US support should continue and that IRC aid could help Diem acquire a popular base.[16]

In 1955, as an executive officer of American Friends of Vietnam (AFVN), Cherne signed a statement in support of President Ngo Dinh Diem's plebiscite on his rule.[17]

Cherne flew to Vienna with IRC President Angier Biddle Duke on 29 October 1956 as the Hungarian Uprising was unfolding.[18] Cherne arrived in Budapest on 1 November, the day Imre Nagy was announcing Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. He refused to distribute any aid to Nagy's government, although by now it was a multi-party coalition, instead supporting conservative Catholic elements around Cardinal József Mindszenty. He returned to Austria within three days as Soviet troops entered Budapest in force.[19]

In January 1959, Cherne and IRC board member William Fitelson visited Cuba on a fact-finding mission in the wake of Fidel Castro's takeover. On their return, they reported to the US authorities on Communist strength within the new government.[20]

In April 1960, Cherne and IRC President John Richardson Jr. met CIA chief Allen Dulles to discuss the potential for projects aimed at refugees from the Caribbean.[21] Cherne also wrote to United Fruit vice-president Edmund Whitman before the announcement of the IRC Caribbean Refugee Program in July 1960.[22]

When Vietnamese military officers overthrew the Diem regime in early October 1963, Cherne was among the signatories of an AFVN statement which welcomed "an opportunity for all the Vietnamese people to unite".[23]

in 1967, Cherne signed the founding statement of the Citizens Committee for Peace with Freedom in Vietnam.[24]

During the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Cherne travelled to Austria with William Casey but was blocked by Soviet troops from crossing the Czechoslovak border with food and supplies.[25]

PFIAB member

Cherne's support for the Vietnam War led him to oppose George McGovern's presidential campaign in 1972, instead serving as vice-chair of Democrats for Nixon. Nixon would respond by appointing Cherne to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB).[26]

Cherne served on PFIAB from 1973 to 1991. In that capacity, he helped to establish the Team B panel, headed by Richard Pipes which accused the CIA of under-stating Soviet military power in the late 1970s.[27]

On 11 December 1975, Cherne delivered a pessimistic testimony to the House Intelligence Committee:

The Soviet Union has already made it clear that it does not interpret the Helsinki agreement as in any way moderating the urgency of its ideological efforts. Indeed, leaders of the Soviet Union have been remarkably candid in observing that they think the tide is running in their favor.[28]

In an address delivered in 9 January 1976, Cherne said:

We are in the midst of a crisis of belief and a crisis of belief can only be resolved by belief. "Will" depends on something most doomsayers have overlooked - crisis, moral danger, shock, massive understandable challenge.[29]

A June 1976 letter from Cherne to CIA director George H.W. Bush laid down the ground-rules for the Team B experiment.[30]

In July 1976, CIA director Bush wrote to Cherne that the composition of the Team B panels would conform closely to PFIAB members' suggestions.[31]

After news leaked of Team B's existence, Bush stormed into Cherne's office accusing PFIAB of responsibility for the leak.[32]

In 1976, President Gerald Ford nominated Cherne to the Intelligence Oversight Board established in the wake of Watergate.[33] This led to increased press interest in his intelligence links, and the New York Times reported a claim by Norman Foundation officer Frank Weil that his organisation had been the conduit for CIA funds to the IRC. Weill later withdrew the accusation, saying that the CIA funds had gone elsewhere, and then CIA director George H.W. Bush officialy denied the report.[34]

The New York Times story was revived in 1980 when President Carter considered Cherne for a position on the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB), the body which took over control of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty from the CIA. Although the Times once again retracted the story, Cherne declined further consideration for the post.[35]

This incident was part of a wider controversy in which four senators, including Frank Church claimed that "former intelligence officials are trying to redirect the board away from its oversight role to one more compatible with the two station's old role as a tool for propaganda. According to Ed Herman and Frank Brodhead the former CIA official concerned was Paul Henze.[36]

In 1980 Cherne joined Democrats for Reagan, because of the candidate's position on national security.[37]

In 1984, Cherne was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan.[38]

Cherne served on a committee established by the A. Philip Randolph Institute to work with non-violent opponents of Apartheid in South Africa in 1986.[39]

Cherne retired as Chairman of the IRC in 1991.[40]

Affiliations

Conferences

Connections

External Resources

Notes

  1. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  2. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.112.
  3. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.199.
  4. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.113.
  5. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  6. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.113.
  7. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.99.
  8. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.112.
  9. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.113.
  10. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.112.
  11. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.117.
  12. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.119.
  13. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.117.
  14. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.123.
  15. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  16. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.148.
  17. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.167.
  18. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.130.
  19. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, pp.133-134.
  20. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.185.
  21. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.185.
  22. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.186.
  23. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.174.
  24. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.181.
  25. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.200.
  26. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.202.
  27. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  28. ↑ Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA, Penn State Press, 1998, p.53.
  29. ↑ Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment, South End Press, 1983, p.198.
  30. ↑ Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA, Penn State Press, 1998, pp.151-152.
  31. ↑ Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA, Penn State Press, 1998, p.151.
  32. ↑ Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA, Penn State Press, 1998, p.177.
  33. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.202.
  34. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, pp.202-203.
  35. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.203.
  36. ↑ Edward S. Herman & Frank Brodhead, The rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection, Sheridan Square Publications, 1986, p.148.
  37. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  38. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  39. ↑ RightWeb, A. Philip Randolph Institute, 7 January 1989.
  40. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  41. ↑ Rightweb, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 8 January 1989.
  42. ↑ RightWeb, Committee for the Free World, 7 January 1989.
  43. ↑ RightWeb, Council on Foreign Relations, 8 January 1989.
  44. ↑ Michael T. Kaufman, Leo Cherne, Leader of Agency For Refugees, Is Dead at 86, New York Times, 14 January 1999.
  45. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, pp.155-156.
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