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| − | <ref>InterNation (1987) the Heritage Foundation goes abroad, The Nation, June 6.</ref>
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| − | From: The Nation
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| − | Date: June 6, 1987
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| − | The Nation
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| − | AN INTERNATION STORY
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| − | THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION GOES ABROAD
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| − | Since 1982 the Heritage Foundation, the mostinfluential conservative think tank in the United States, has channeled as much as $1 million to right-wing organizations in Britain and other Western European countries, with the aim of influencing domestic political affairs. In one case large sums have been paid through a former Central Intelligence Agency contract employee to undisclosed third parties. The transfer of Heritage funds is detailed in documents obtained by InterNation from the United States Internal Revenue Service and has been confirmed in interviews with officials of the Heritage Foundation and like-minded think tanks in Europe.
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| − | The Heritage Foundation has established itselfas a major political presence in Ronald Reagan's Washington since 1980, when it produced its "Mandate for Leadership,' a 1,093-page compendium of conservative policy proposals. But although its domestic activities have attracted widespread attention, the foundation's effort to expand its influence beyond the United States has had a much lower profile. The first opportunity to measure the scope of its international activities may come in Britain, which is preparing for a general election on June 11. The British groups financed by Heritage are closely linked to senior figures in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party. In one case, where the foundation provided start-up capital and the overwhelming bulk of continued financial support, the result is a virtual Heritage satellite.
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| − | In recent years conservatives have increasinglybanded together across borders. The International Democratic Union, for example, a collection of conservative party leaders from thirty countries, was set up in 1983 to hold biannual gatherings to coordinate strategies, particularly in foreign policy. Jeffrey Gayner, Heritage's counsel for international relations, who is described in the organization's 1985 annual report as its "ambassador to the world,' says Heritage has led the effort to shape a "common international agenda' for the right, developing "a cooperative relationship' with more than 200 foreign groups and individuals, including political parties, think tanks, academics and media. Programs include information exchanges and visits, Heritage's periodic appointment of non-Americans to specific assignments and fellowships.
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| − | Heritage's international activities have been helped by itseasy entree to Reagan Administration circles. In 1982 President Reagan appointed the foundation's president, Edwin Feulner Jr., as chair of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. That commission evaluates programs of the U.S. Information Agency, including Voice of America, Radio Marti, Fulbright scholarships and the National Endowment for Democracy. Heritage's 1986 annual report boasted that in his work for the foundation, Feulner had "again logged over 100,000 miles of air travel . . . visiting numerous world capitals, and meeting with countless government officials.' Gayner, as a member of the Board of Foreign Scholarships, which supervises the U.S.I.A.'s academic exchange programs, has found the doors of foreign governments and universities wide open to him.
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| − | Nowhere have the associations been closer than with Britain.Feulner, who attended the London School of Economics and the University of Edinburgh, maintains close personal links to British conservatives. Gerald Frost, executive director of the Institute for European Defense and Strategic Studies (I.E.D.S.S.), a beneficiary of the Heritage Foundation's largesse, told InterNation, "I'm helped in some ways that Ed Feulner is an Anglophile and an admirer of English institutions.' Feulner's enthusiasm is reciprocated: in October 1983, Prime Minister Thatcher sent Heritage an effusive personal message of congratulations on its tanth anniversary. Heritage also led the attack on Unesco, which culminated when the United States withdrew from the organization, in 1984, followed by Britain a year later. This year, the Heritage alumnus John O'Sullivan, editor of the foundation's journal, Policy Review, from 1979 to 1983 and now a policy adviser to Thatcher, wrote key sections of the Conservative Party's election manifesto, "The Next Moves Forward.'
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| − | Heritage funding of British projects was evident as earlyas 1979, and became more systematic in 1982, when U.S. and British conservatives were alarmed by the growing influence of the peace movement. That May, Heritage disseminated a so-called backgrounder titled "Moscow and the Peace Offensive,' in which it called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and "its affiliated public support organizations' to spread "information concerning the links . . . between known Communist front groups and the "independent' peace groups.'
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| − | The campaign to prevent the deployment of cruisemissiles on British soil was accompanied by a steady acceleration of Heritage funding. According to the I.R.S.'s schedules, the foundation's donations to a range of British institutions rose from $106,000 in 1982 to $254,000 in 1985. Although 1986 figures are not yet available, total Heritage contributions over a five-year period appear to be in the neighborhood of $1 million. During the three years for which records could be obtained, Britain was the target of more than 95 percent of Heritage's international funding operations.
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| − | Three main recipients were identified in the I.R.S.schedules for 1982, 1983 and 1985: the I.E.D.S.S., which received a total of $427,809, more than any other group, U.S. or foreign; the International Freedom Fund Establishment (I.F.F.E.), which took in $140,000; and the Coalition for Peace through Security (C.P.S.), which accepted a $10,000 grant in 1982 and, according to some evidence, may have received additional funds that were never declared. BBC television's untransmitted Secret Society series [see Christopher Hitchens, "New Statesman Downed by Law,' The Nation, February 21] obtained a letter from the C.P.S. thanking Heritage for a further grant of $50,000 in October 1982. (The I.R.S. says the 1984 schedule is unavailable, and returns for 1986 had not been filed by the time this article went to press.)
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| − | Three other British groups were given token amounts: theSocial Affairs Unit, the International Symposium of the Open Society and an organization listed simply as Aneks.
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| − | "This is the age of the think tank,' said I.E.D.S.S. executivedirector Frost in an interview with InterNation. Nongovernmental think tanks have already transformed the political landscape of the United States; Frost is a pioneer of the trend in Britain. Before moving to the I.E.D.S.S., he was secretary of one of the country's first think tanks, the Center for Policy Studies, which was founded in 1974 by, among others, Margaret Thatcher, who served as its first president.
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| − | The institute is a registered charity under British law and,as such, is barred from political lobbying. Founded in 1979, the year Thatcher came to power, it stated its goals thus: "To assess the impact of political change in Europe and North America on defense and strategic issues. In particular, to study the domestic political situation in NATO countries and how this affects the NATO posture.' It declared that it would put most of its effort into publications, seminars and conferences.
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| − | In an interview in February with InterNation, Gaynerdenied that there is any formal connection between Heritage and the institute. But the I.E.D.S.S. was, in fact, set up with foundation funds. The connection runs deeper than money alone. Heritage president Feulner chairs the institute's board. Richard V. Allen, Reagan's first national security adviser, a Heritage distinguished fellow and head of the foundation's Asian Studies Center advisory council, is also a board member. Frank Shakespeare, chair of the foundation's board of trustees and the Reagan Administration's Ambassador to the Vatican, was a founding member of the I.E.D.S.S.'s advisory council.
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| − | Frost says that Stephen Haseler came up with the idea forthe I.E.D.S.S. One of the earliest prominent defectors to Britain's Social Democratic Party, which broke away from the Labor Party in 1981, Haseler was also a Heritage scholar and a member of the editorial board of Policy Review. According to Frost, Haseler "saw the need for a broad-based international institute' and "persuaded Ed Fuelner that this was a good idea.' Feulner then agreed to support the good idea, to the tune of 60,000 pounds, then $132,870.
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| − | The second crucial participant in setting I.E.D.S.S.priorities was Sir Peter Blaker, a senior Tory who, according to Frost, "saw the implications of an upsurge in peace movement activity, which was a movement of concern to him.' Blaker is an important figure in British defense circles. From 1979 to 1983 he was a junior official in Thatcher's Defense Ministry, and in 1983 he headed a secret ministerial group on Nuclear Weapons and Public Opinion, which generated films and literature against Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (C.N.D.). He is currently chair of the Conservatives' Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Committee.
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| − | Another senior Tory Member of Parliament involved withthe I.E.D.S.S. is Ray Whitney, who served on the institute's board from 1979 to 1984. Whitney is also a junior minister in the Thatcher government and preceded Blaker as chair of the Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Committee in Parliament. In the late 1970s Whitney headed a secret Foreign Office body called the Information Research Department, which conducted covert propaganda activities, including some directed against British leftists. He appears to have taken a more direct role than Blaker in the smear campaign against the peace movement. In April 1983, as preparations began for a general election, Tory Defense Minister Michael Heseltine released a letter purporting to prove communist domination of the C.N.D. and of the Labor Party. One of Heseltine's chief sources was Whitney. "Our colleague Ray Whitney,' he commented at the time, "has added a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the political motivations of C.N.D.'
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| − | I.E.D.S.S. publications also regularly attacked the C.N.D.Its first monograph, Protest and Perish, an assault on E.P. Thompson's Protest and Survive, accused Thompson of "furthering the arms race' by destabilizing NATO and the bloc system. Great Britain and NATO: A Parting of the Ways?, also published in 1982, declared that Britain could face civil war if a Labor government took office, and warned that NATO could not entrust secrets to a governing party under the sway of a "pro-Soviet faction.' Further publications assailed the presence of the churches in the peace movement and the teaching of peace studies in British universities. Co-author of the last of those was Caroline Cox, a former director of the Center for Policy Studies and, since becoming a baroness, in 1982, a leading spokeswoman for the Conservative Party in the House of Lords.
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| − | Most of this propaganda was made possible by grantsfrom the Heritage Foundation. Although both Gayner and Frost downplayed the connection in interviews, there is little likelihood that the I.E.D.S.S., whose 1986 budget, according to Frost, was 125,000 pounds, then $184,000, could survive without Heritage backing. According to its year-end financial report for 1985, the institute's total income from donations in 1984 and 1985 amounted to $185,611 at year-end exchange rates. Figures logged with the I.R.S. show that Heritage gave I.E.D.S.S. $91,165 in 1982; $185,371 in 1983; and $151,273 in 1985.
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| − | At least one other private U.S. foundation specializingin ultraconservative causes has also funded I.E.D.S.S. A spokesman for the John M. Olin Foundation, where Heritage trustee William E. Simon is in charge of grants, confirmed that it had given I.E.D.S.S. $20,000 in 1986. Frost declined to reveal how much the institute had received from Heritage last year, but did say, "O.K., in 1986 they were still our biggest source of funds.' He is visibly rattled by the topic of Heritage funds: "If you're seen as having this connection,' he told InterNation, "people might take less notice of you.' And, he added, "the media becomes suspicious.'
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| − | The Coalition for Peace through Security was also createdby Heritage dollars, with the declared intention of making "one-sided disarmament a millstone around the neck of any politician advocating such a course of action for Britain.' The Heritage-C.P.S. relationship was cemented in the fall of 1981, when the group's three founders visited Washington and agreed to embark on the task of "educating public opinion' in Britain. For its founding conference in London, in March 1982, the C.P.S. brought over assorted luminaries of the New Right in the United States, including Paul Weyrich, co-founder of Heritage and president of the Free Congress Foundation; and Morton Blackwell, then a White House aide and assistant to direct-mail wizard Richard Viguerie. They discussed ways in which U.S. conservative fund-raising and opinion-forming techniques could be used in Britain. Thatcher sent a message of welcome, telling the organization, "I wish every success to your efforts, as I consider this a matter vital to our security and the preservation of peace.'
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| − | Links between the C.P.S. and the I.E.D.S.S. are close.Sir Peter Blaker is involved with both groups, and the two cooperated in the publication and distribution of Protest and Perish. Their methods differ, however. Although its literature claims the C.P.S. is committed to "the spirit of our British tradition of fair play,' the group plays dirty in its campaign to smear nuclear disarmers as Soviet puppets, according to C.N.D. vice chair Bruce Kent. Among its tactics, Kent claims, are heckling and disruption of C.N.D. meetings, often by flying a blimp or banner reading "C.N.D. = K.G.B.' In one characteristic action last August, C.P.S. activists shattered a two-minute silence at a rally commemorating the bombing of Hiroshima by playing "God Save the Queen' full blast over loudspeakers.
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| − | The third and most enigmatic of the British groups fundedby Heritage is the International Freedom Fund Establishment, which is not registered in Britain either as a company or a charity. I.R.S. schedules show that Heritage has sent at least $140,000 earmarked for this group to Brian Crozier, a fixture on the far right of British politics, who was identified as a C.I.A. contract employee by The New York Times in December 1977. Crozier is the former head of the Institute for the Study of Conflict, which was heavily endowed by the ultraconservative U.S. funder Richard Mellon Scaife in the 1970s. In 1981 an aide to Scaife reported that the institute had set up solid working relationships with the Heritage Foundation and that its "research into political and psychological warfare, revolutionary activities, insurgency operations and terrorism is consistently used by the Thatcher government.' More recently Crozier has taken up the cause of the Nicaraguan contras. Last December he shared a platform in London with contra leader Arturo Cruz and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Charles M. Lichenstein, who is also a Heritage senior fellow.
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| − | There are no public records of the ultimate recipients ofthe money Heritage sent to Crozier. In an April 28 telephone interview with InterNation, Crozier insisted that his only connection with Heritage was as an adjunct scholar. He described himself as a freelance risk analyst, and the I.F.F.E. as "a contact or checking point' that handles funds for a number of organizations, which he declined to name. In a second conversation, two days later, Crozier said, "The I.F.F.E. is a clearinghouse, and that is all.' He then acknowledged arranging for the transfer of Heritage funds but again refused to respond to questions about the eventual beneficiaries. "This is a private matter,' he said.
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| − | Heritage vice president Herb Berkowitz, when asked tocomment, described the I.F.F.E. as a "networking' operation. "We support them, and he [Crozier] does the work.' He also acknowledged that Heritage had sent Crozier an additional $50,000 last year. The money, Berkowitz said, "goes to scholars, writers and research institutes; some might be affiliated with political parties . . . he makes the decision.' When asked if Crozier told Heritage who they were, Berkowitz replied, "I do not think he reports back to us in detail.'
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| − | He should. Tax-exempt organizations such as the HeritageFoundation, says and I.R.S. spokesman, "have to keep control over their funds and know where the funds are being ultimately spent.' Even if transfer to a third party is prearranged, "the grantor has to keep control and records. They have to know where the money goes.'
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| − | Britain is only the most dramatic instance of a growinginternational effort by the Heritage Foundation. Smaller amounts of money fund other European groups and individuals, including economist Friedrich von Hayeck of the University of Freiburg, in West Germany, and conservative economic research institutes in Paris and Rome. Heritage works closely with such conservative groups as the Hans Seidel Foundation in West Germany, the international arm of Franz-Josef Strauss's Christian Social Union; and the Club de l'Horloge in France, with which it co-sponsored a May 1986 conference in Nice called La Deculpabilisation de l'Occident--getting rid of the West's guilt.
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| − | The foundation has also reached into Africa and Asia.According to the foundation's 1985 annual report, Stuart Butler, director of domestic policy studies, twice visited South Africa that year "to advise the business community how to use the free market to dismantle racial apartheid.' Heritage has tried to rally support for Zulu Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, for whom it hosted a dinner in Washington last November.
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| − | It used the same approach with spectacular success whenJonas Savimbi, leader of Angola's Unita rebels, visited Washington in January 1986. On Savimbi's itinerary were a lecture and a dinner at Heritage, attended by Secretary of State George Shultz, Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, national security adviser Vice Adm. John Poindexter and other senior Administration officials. "We brought the key policy people together,' Gayner recalled with satisfaction. "Savimbi had the audience he needed.' Gayner also acknowledged that Heritage is giving the same kind of help to the Renamo rebels in Mozambique.
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| − | Heritage's Asian Studies Center is in fact its largest regionalprogram. On recent Asian tours, Feulner met with conservative think tanks in several countries and with the heads of government of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. In 1985, the foundation reports, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone "agreed to consider additional measures spelled out in a series of Heritage papers.'
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| − | In an interview with InterNation, Heritage's vice president,Burton Yale Pines, predicted, "Maybe the next step will be to organize some kind of Conservative International.' He suggested this could take the form of an alliance of as many as twenty like-minded goups in the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Japan and other countries. In the past six years the Heritage Foundation has been a major force behind the "Reagan revolution.' The Administration comes to an end in 1989, but the Heritage Foundation will do its best to see that the principles of Reaganism have a continuing effect on politics far beyond the borders of the United States.
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