Difference between revisions of "Ford Foundation"

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The '''Ford Foundation''' is a charitable foundation based in New York City created to fund programs that promote democracy, reduce poverty and promote international understanding.  The current chair is [[Susan V. Berresford]].
  
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==Excerpt from G. William Domhoff, (1967) Who Rules America, Spectrum Books, pp. 65-8==
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==History==
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The Ford Foundation was founded in 1936 with grants from [[Henry Ford]] and his son [[Edsel Ford]] of the [[Ford Motor Company]]. Initially, the foundation was used to support Ford family causes, such as [[Henry Ford Hospital]] and [[Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum]].
  
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By far the biggest individual foundation, the '''Ford Foundation''' came into prominence during the 1950’s through its financing of universities, the arts, and educational television. It has spent more than $8o million on Educational Television (ETV), a figure that grows by $6 million a year. The president of ETV in the mid-I96o’s was [[Jack White]], a former college dean:
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After the deaths of Henry Ford in 1947 and Edsel Ford in 1943, the Ford Foundation commissioned a report to determine how the foundation should continue.  The committee, headed by [[H. Rowan Gaither]], recommended that the foundation should commit to promoting peace, freedom, and education throughout the world. To provide funding for various projects, the board of directors decided to diversify the foundation's portfolio and gradually divested itself of its substantial Ford Motor Company stock between 1955 and 1974.  Through this divestiture, the Ford Motor Company became a public company in 1956.
  
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:White is theoretically responsible to a board of directors composed of school superintendents, corporation presidents, and college presidents, but the board plays mostly a public relations function. White’s chief responsibility is to the Ford Foundation, which subsidized and created NET (National Educational Television), chose White as its executive, and reserves the right to inspect every NET program produced with Ford Foundation money.{{ref|7}}
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Other than its name, the Ford Foundation has not had any connections to the Ford Motor Company nor the Ford family for over thirty years.  [[Henry Ford II]], the last remaining Ford on the board of directors, resigned from the foundation board in 1976 due to his frustration with what he believed was the foundation's arrogance and anti-capitalist attitudes.  
  
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National Educational Television, a network of 90 independent stations, provides late afternoon and evening viewing of children’s programs, cultural events, and informational programs. Audience surveys suggest that it is viewed by those of above-average income and a college education. We believe that NET may be described as one of the many lines of communication between liberal members of the upper class and the intelligentsia of the upper-middle class.
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As of the end of the 2004 fiscal year, the foundation reported a total investment portfolio of $10.5 billion, giving out around $520 million in grants for the year.
  
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Ford has sponsored other projects which are an important part of American intellectual life. It gave a $15 million grant to the Fund for the Republic, which in turn set up the liberal-minded [[Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions]] in Santa Barbara, California. The grant was made during the presidency of millionaire [[Paul G. Hoffman]]. Hoffman is best known as the former president and chairman of the Studebaker Company. He is one of the leading “business liberals� in the American upper class and, as shall be seen, the founder of the influential Committee for Economic Development.*
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==Critics==
  
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Turning to another Ford benefaction in the educational realm, the foundation has taken over the financing of Harvard’s Russian Research Center from the [[Carnegie Foundation]]. It gave $131,000 of the center’s budget for 1965, with the remaining $9000 coming from Carnegie funds. With a staff of 57 scholars drawn from the many colleges and universities in the Boston area, this center provides consultants to the State Department and the [[CIA]], as well as lecturers to the [[Army War College]], the [[Foreign Service Institute]], and the [[Council on Foreign Relations]].{{ref|8}} The board of the Ford Foundation is presented in Table 1. It consists, by and large, of the same men studied in the previous chapter, with an added dash of journalism and scholarship.
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In 2005, Michigan Attorney General [[Mike Cox]] began a probe of the foundation. Though the Ford Foundation is headquarted in New York City, it is chartered in [[Michigan]], giving the state jurisdiction.  Cox is focusing on its governance, potential conflicts of interest among board members, and its poor record of giving to charities in Michigan.  Between 1998 and 2002, the Ford Foundation gave Michigan charities about $2.5 million per year, far less than many other charities.  Cox is hoping that this probe will prod the foundation into giving more to Michigan charities. {{ref|det}}
  
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==Table 1. TRUSTEES OF THE FORD FOUNDATION==
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Certain critics such as former Binghamton University professor [[James Petras]] have criticized the Foundation for  links with the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. Petras cites former Foundation president [[Richard M. Bissell Jr|Richard Bissell]]'s relationship with DCI [[Allen Dulles]] and involvement with the [[Marshall Plan]] during the 1950s. Petras also criticises the Ford Foundation for funding what he terms "anti-leftist" human rights groups that "do not participate in anti-globalization and anti-neoliberal mass actions."{{ref|Petras}}
  
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===UPPER-CLASS TRUSTEES===
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Another American academic, Joan Roelofs, in ''Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism'' (State University of New York Press, 2003,) argues that Ford and similar foundations play a key role in co-opting opposition movements: "While dissent from ruling class ideas is labeled 'extremism' and is isolated, individual dissenters may be welcomed and transformed. Indeed, ruling class hegemony is more durable if it is not rigid and narrow, but is able dynamically to incorporate emergent trends." She reports that [[John J. McCloy]], while chairman of the Foundation's board of trustees, "...thought of the Foundation as a quasi-extension of the U.S. government. It was his habit, for instance, to drop by the [[National Security Council]] (NSC) in Washington every couple of months and casually ask whether there were any overseas projects the NSC would like to see funded." Roelofs also charges that the Ford Foundation financed [[counter-insurgency]] programs in [[Indonesia]] and other countries.
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*[[Stephen Bechtel]] is head of the little-known, but very large, [[Bechtel]] Construction Corporation of Oakland, California. Mr. Bechtel is also a director of Morgan Guaranty Trust, Southern Pacific, Continental Can, Bechtel-McCone Corporation, and Stanford University, among others.
 
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*[[Eugene Black]] is a Southern-born aristocrat who is a long-time employee of the Rockefeller interests. He is a director of Chase Manhattan, IT & T, The New York Times, Cummins Engine, the Brookings Institution, and Johns Hopkins University, among others.
 
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*[[John Cowles]] (Exeter, Harvard) of Minneapolis is co-owner of the family publishing empire, which includes Look Magazine and newspapers in Minneapolis and Des Moines. He is also a trustee for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a director of the First National Bank of Minneapolis and the Equitable Life Insurance Company of Iowa.
 
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*[[Donald K. David]] is a Harvard Business School professor and dean who sits on several corporate boards.
 
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*[[Benson Ford]] (Hotchkiss, Princeton) is a director of the National Safety Council and chairman of the board of the Traffic Safety Committee. He is a vice-president at Ford Motor Company.
 
  
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* Less controversial than the Santa Barbara center is another Ford-sponsored center in California, the [[Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences]], invitingly ensconced in the wooded hills of Palo Alto, where successful scholars repair for a year at a time to think and write books at Ford’s expense.
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==Trustees==
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* [[Paul Arthur Allaire]], Chairman of the Board
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* [[Alain J.P. Belda]], Chairman/CEO, [[Alcoa]] Inc.
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* [[Afsaneh M. Beschloss]], President/CEO, [[Carlyle Asset Management Group]]
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* [[Anke A. Ehrhardt]], Director, HIV Ctr for Clinical and Behavioral Studies NY State Psychiatric Institute
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* [[Kathryn Fuller]], Ex-President/CEO, World Wildlife Fund (as of 2005), now Director of Alcoa
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* [[Juliet V. Garcia]], President, University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College
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* [[Wilmot G. James]], Executive Director, Social Cohesion and Integration Research Programme, [[Human Sciences Research Council]], Cape Town, South Africa
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* [[Yolanda Kakabadse]], Executive President, [[Fundacion Futuro Latinoamericano]], Quito, Ecuador
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* Wilma P. Mankiller, Former Principal Chief, Cherokee Nation, Park Hill, Oklahoma
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* Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation
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* Yolanda T. Moses, President, The American Association for Higher Education
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* Luis G. Nogales, Managing Partner, Nogales Investors, LLC, Los Angeles, California
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* Deval L. Patrick, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, The [[Coca-Cola]] Company
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* Ratan N. Tata, Chairman, Tata Industries Limited, Mumbai, India
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* Carl B. Weisbrod, President, Alliance for Downtown New York, Inc.
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* W. Richard West, Director, National Museum of the American Indian
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* Susan V. Berresford, President, The [[Ford Foundation]]
  
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*[[Henry Ford]] II (Hotchkiss, Yale) is a director for [[General Electric]], [[General Foods]], and Philco. He runs the [[Ford Motor Company]].
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==Recipients of funding==
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*[[Roy B. Larsen]] (SR, NY) is chairman of the executive committee of Time, Inc.
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*[[Demos USA]]
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*[[John I. McCloy]] (SR, NY) is a director of many corporations. As a former chairman of the board at Chase Manhattan he is a key interlock between the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller empire. Mr. McCloy is chairman of the Ford Foundation trustees.
 
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*[[Joseph Irwin Miller]], the head of Cummins Engine Company, is a director of AT & T and many other corporations.
 
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*[[Bethuel Webster]] (SR, NY) is a corporation lawyer who was a consultant for John J. McCloy when McCloy was High Commissioner of Germany.
 
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*[[Charles B. Wyzanski]], Jr. (Exeter, Harvard), is a Jewish member of the upper class. Judge Wyzanski is married to another member of the Jewish aristocracy, Gisela Warburg, who came to this country to escape the Nazi persecution.
 
  
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===OTHERS===
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== Further reading ==
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*[[Mark F. Ethridge]] is the editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, which is owned by Barry Bingham, who sits on the board of the [[Rockefeller Foundation]].
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*Eric Thomas Chester, 1995 [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/fordfoundation.htm The Ford Foundation] in Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee, and the CIA.  Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
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*[[Laurence Gould]] is president of Carleton College.
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* Frances Stonor Saunders (2001), ''The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters'', New Press, ISBN 1-56584-664-8. [Aka, ''Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War'' 1999, Granta (UK edition)].
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*[[Julius Stratton]] is president of MIT.
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* Edward H Berman ''The Ideology of Philanthropy: The influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations on American foreign policy'', State University of New York Press, 1983. Excerpt available [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/ideologyofphilanthropy.htm here]
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*[[Henry T. Heald]] was president of Ford Foundation at the time of this study. He was the president of Illinois Institute of Technology (1940-1952) and NYU (1952-1956) before joining the Ford Foundation. His training was as an engineer. He is a director of [[AT & T]], U. S. Steel, [[Equitable Life]], and [[Lever Brothers]].
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* David Ransom, ''The Trojan Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid'', pub. 1975, pp. 93-116 "1970 Ford Foundation : Building an Elite for Indonesia".  
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* Bob Feldman, [http://www.questionsquestions.net/gatekeepers.html  "Alternative Media Censorship sponsored by CIA's Ford Foundation?"]
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* Scott Sherman "[http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060605/sherman Target Ford]" (2006), in ''The Nation''.
  
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==Source==
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== External links ==
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G. William Domhoff (1967) Who rules America?, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. p.65-8.
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* [http://www.fordfound.org/ The Ford Foundation Website]
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*G. William Domhoff, '[http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/ford_foundation.html The Ford Foundation in the Inner City: Forging an Alliance with Neighborhood Activists]' Posted 7 September 2005.
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*James Petras [http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/ford010102.htm The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police] Rebelión 15 December 2001
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* [http://www.voltairenet.org/article30039.html Ford Foundation, a philanthropic facade for the CIA] [[Voltaire Network]], April 5, 2004.
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* [http://www.questionsquestions.net/feldman/ff_divest.html Time for Ford Foundation & CFR to Divest?] Collaboration of the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie Foundations with the [[Council on Foreign Relations]].
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* List of grant recipients can be found on the Ford Foundation's [http://www.fordfound.org/grants_db/view_grant_detail1.cfm grant database].
  
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==Resources==
  
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==External links==
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*[[Ford Foundation, extract from Who Rules America]] by G. William Domhoff, (1967) Spectrum Books, pp. 65-8.
  
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G. William Domhoff, 'The Ford Foundation in the Inner City: Forging an Alliance with Neighborhood Activists' Posted 7 September 2005. [http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/ford_foundation.html]
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== References ==
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#{{note|det}}Daniel  Howes [http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060402/OPINION03/604020373&SearchID=7324199359959 Ford Foundation probed; AG claims Mich. left out] Detroit News 2006-04-02
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#{{note|Petras}}James Petras [http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/ford010102.htm The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police] Rebelión 15 December 2001
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[[Category: Foundations]]

Latest revision as of 09:19, 28 February 2014

The Ford Foundation is a charitable foundation based in New York City created to fund programs that promote democracy, reduce poverty and promote international understanding. The current chair is Susan V. Berresford.

History

The Ford Foundation was founded in 1936 with grants from Henry Ford and his son Edsel Ford of the Ford Motor Company. Initially, the foundation was used to support Ford family causes, such as Henry Ford Hospital and Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum.

After the deaths of Henry Ford in 1947 and Edsel Ford in 1943, the Ford Foundation commissioned a report to determine how the foundation should continue. The committee, headed by H. Rowan Gaither, recommended that the foundation should commit to promoting peace, freedom, and education throughout the world. To provide funding for various projects, the board of directors decided to diversify the foundation's portfolio and gradually divested itself of its substantial Ford Motor Company stock between 1955 and 1974. Through this divestiture, the Ford Motor Company became a public company in 1956.

Other than its name, the Ford Foundation has not had any connections to the Ford Motor Company nor the Ford family for over thirty years. Henry Ford II, the last remaining Ford on the board of directors, resigned from the foundation board in 1976 due to his frustration with what he believed was the foundation's arrogance and anti-capitalist attitudes.

As of the end of the 2004 fiscal year, the foundation reported a total investment portfolio of $10.5 billion, giving out around $520 million in grants for the year.

Critics

In 2005, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox began a probe of the foundation. Though the Ford Foundation is headquarted in New York City, it is chartered in Michigan, giving the state jurisdiction. Cox is focusing on its governance, potential conflicts of interest among board members, and its poor record of giving to charities in Michigan. Between 1998 and 2002, the Ford Foundation gave Michigan charities about $2.5 million per year, far less than many other charities. Cox is hoping that this probe will prod the foundation into giving more to Michigan charities. [1]

Certain critics such as former Binghamton University professor James Petras have criticized the Foundation for links with the CIA. Petras cites former Foundation president Richard Bissell's relationship with DCI Allen Dulles and involvement with the Marshall Plan during the 1950s. Petras also criticises the Ford Foundation for funding what he terms "anti-leftist" human rights groups that "do not participate in anti-globalization and anti-neoliberal mass actions."[2]

Another American academic, Joan Roelofs, in Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (State University of New York Press, 2003,) argues that Ford and similar foundations play a key role in co-opting opposition movements: "While dissent from ruling class ideas is labeled 'extremism' and is isolated, individual dissenters may be welcomed and transformed. Indeed, ruling class hegemony is more durable if it is not rigid and narrow, but is able dynamically to incorporate emergent trends." She reports that John J. McCloy, while chairman of the Foundation's board of trustees, "...thought of the Foundation as a quasi-extension of the U.S. government. It was his habit, for instance, to drop by the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington every couple of months and casually ask whether there were any overseas projects the NSC would like to see funded." Roelofs also charges that the Ford Foundation financed counter-insurgency programs in Indonesia and other countries.

Trustees

  • Paul Arthur Allaire, Chairman of the Board
  • Alain J.P. Belda, Chairman/CEO, Alcoa Inc.
  • Afsaneh M. Beschloss, President/CEO, Carlyle Asset Management Group
  • Anke A. Ehrhardt, Director, HIV Ctr for Clinical and Behavioral Studies NY State Psychiatric Institute
  • Kathryn Fuller, Ex-President/CEO, World Wildlife Fund (as of 2005), now Director of Alcoa
  • Juliet V. Garcia, President, University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College
  • Wilmot G. James, Executive Director, Social Cohesion and Integration Research Programme, Human Sciences Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa
  • Yolanda Kakabadse, Executive President, Fundacion Futuro Latinoamericano, Quito, Ecuador
  • Wilma P. Mankiller, Former Principal Chief, Cherokee Nation, Park Hill, Oklahoma
  • Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation
  • Yolanda T. Moses, President, The American Association for Higher Education
  • Luis G. Nogales, Managing Partner, Nogales Investors, LLC, Los Angeles, California
  • Deval L. Patrick, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, The Coca-Cola Company
  • Ratan N. Tata, Chairman, Tata Industries Limited, Mumbai, India
  • Carl B. Weisbrod, President, Alliance for Downtown New York, Inc.
  • W. Richard West, Director, National Museum of the American Indian
  • Susan V. Berresford, President, The Ford Foundation

Recipients of funding

Further reading

  • Eric Thomas Chester, 1995 The Ford Foundation in Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee, and the CIA. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
  • Frances Stonor Saunders (2001), The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New Press, ISBN 1-56584-664-8. [Aka, Who Paid the Piper?: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War 1999, Granta (UK edition)].
  • Edward H Berman The Ideology of Philanthropy: The influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations on American foreign policy, State University of New York Press, 1983. Excerpt available here
  • David Ransom, The Trojan Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid, pub. 1975, pp. 93-116 "1970 Ford Foundation : Building an Elite for Indonesia".
  • Bob Feldman, "Alternative Media Censorship sponsored by CIA's Ford Foundation?"
  • Scott Sherman "Target Ford" (2006), in The Nation.

External links

Resources

References

  1. ^Daniel Howes Ford Foundation probed; AG claims Mich. left out Detroit News 2006-04-02
  2. ^James Petras The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police Rebelión 15 December 2001
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