Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies

The Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies (IEDSS) was set up in London in 1979 to study poitical change in Europe and to assess its impact on strategic and defence issues. It was particularly concerned with those developments which affected the Western Alliance. It was founded by Peter Blaker MP, Ray Whitney MP and Steven Haseler. According to Tom Easton :

"Haseler was not only a member of the SDP, but a founding member of the Social Democratic Alliance which preceded it. An academic who, as a London councillor, had become a vociferous critic of changes within the Labour Party in the Seventies, Haseler had spent some time at the third big Washington think-tank, the Heritage Foundation. With its money he had helped set up in London the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies, a forceful and well-resourced foe of both the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Labour Party in the Eighties."

IEDSS was the subject of a profile in City Limits (14 August 1986). According to Robin Ramsay in Lobster 13, 1987, it was formed as part of the response to the British peace movement; Ramsay also suggests that Haseler is rumoured to be CIA, and Allen was NSC advisor to Reagan until he got caught (or set up) taking a bribe. IEDSS appeared to be run by Gerald Frost who was in the Thatcher/Joseph Centre for Policy Studies.

Funding

Funders included the right wing US foundations The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. and the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.

People

1982 Advisory Council

Richard V. Allen: US National Security Council (NSC), appointed to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (DPB) Advisory Committee November 2001; Senior Fellow Hoover Institution 1983-present; Center for Strategic and International Studies Advisory Board; Project for the New American Century; Member Heritage Foundation; Council on Foreign Relations; The Nixon Center Advisory Council, International Crisis Group, Board of Trustees U.S. National Committee for Pacific Basin Economic Cooperation, Founding Member; German-American Tricentennial Foundation, Chairman; Republican National Committee, Senior Counselor; American Alternative Foundation, Board of Directors; Vice President U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea; Board of Directors Freedom House; American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus; Republican National Committee, Senior Counselor for Foreign Policy and National Security; Republican Platform Committee Senior Policy Adviser in 1984, 1980, and 1976; Former Member, Advisory Council on National Security and International Affairs and Chairman of its Subcommittee on Intelligence; Committee on the Present Danger,

Allen has also seen government Service in the Defense Policy Board, 2001-present; the U.S. Congress, National Security Advisory Group and the Congressional Policy Advisory Board. In the Reagan Administration he was Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1981-1982; Chief Foreign and Defense Policy Adviser to Reagan Campaign, 1977-1980. In the Nixon Administration he was Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Executive Director of the Council on International Economic Policy, 1971-1972; Member, President's Commission on International Trade and Investment Policy (Williams Commission), Early 1970s; National Security Council Senior Staff Member, 1968; Director of Foreign Policy Research for Nixon Presidential Campaign, 1968.

Richard V. Allen Company AEA International Trade and Management Consultants: Former Chairman, Mid-1990s, Credit International Bank: Chairman, 1988-1991, Allen also works as a financial consultantPotomac International Corporation: Cofounder and President, 1972-1980.

According to Right Web:

"Allen came into possession of a $1,000 gratuity paid in cash from a Japanese magazine, intended for Nancy Reagan in exchange for an interview she had given, which money he placed in a White House safe and then reportedly forgot. Also, it was belatedly discovered that around the same time, Allen had accepted three expensive watches as personal gifts from Japanese friends who were high-level governmental consultants. As a result of these disclosures, Allen was forced to leave his NSC post in early 1982.”

Allen is also part of the Washington, D.C. staff of global communication consultancy APCO and is cited by the Council of Public Relations Firms as part of their team who are:

"... well positioned to help identify contract opportunities, navigate the complex award process both in Washington and in Baghdad, and position clients with major contracting parties and the U.S. government's key appointees in Baghdad."

Allen is also a Counsellor of Layalina Productions, Inc. (a US public diplomacy operation) which produces "informative and entertaining Arabic-language programming for licensing to satellite and cable television networks throughout the Arab Middle East and North Africa." Fellow members are a Who's Who of US political luminaries such as James A. Baker, III, Samuel R. Berger, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Henry A. Kissinger, Sam Nunn, George P. Shultz. Given what these men have been involved in over the past decades, Layalina Productions has set itself the challenging goal of addressing "the negative stereotypes about the United States by providing Arabic-speaking television viewers with programming that is honest, positive, and entertaining." President George H.W. Bush is Honorary Chairman of the Board.

Luigi Barzini

Dr. Robert Conquest

Rt. Hon Lord George Brown

Brian Key MEP

Melvin J. Lasky: Ex-editor of Encounter

Leonard Schapiro

Pedro Schwartz

Frank Shakespeare

Dr. G. R. Urban

1982 Board of Management

Dr. Edwin J. Feulner Jr. (Chairman) president of the Heritage Foundation

Dr. Stephan Haseler (Sec)

Congressman David R. Bowen

Peter R. Durrant

Douglas Eden

Prof. Antonio Martino

Ray Whitney Information Research Department (IRD)

Gerald Frost (Ex. Dir.)

George Miller (research officer)

1985 Advisory Council

Dr. Robert Conquest

Brian Key MEP

Leopold Labedz

Melvin J. Lasky

Rt. Hon Reginald Prentice MP

Hon Frank Shakespeare

Dr. Philip Towle

Dr. G. R. Urban

1985 Board of Management

Richard V. Allen

Rt. Hon Sir Peter Blaker KCMG MP

Dr. Iain Elliot

Dr. Edwin J. Feulner Jr.

Dr. Stephan Haseler

Prof. Antonio Martino

Gerald Frost (Ex. Dir.)

Jonathan Luxmore (Editor)

1990 Advisory Council

Prof. Jean-MArie Benoist

Dr. Christopher Coker :BAP steering group 1996, RUSI, Chatham House and Institute for European Defence & Strategic Studies

• Dr. Robert Conquest
• Baroness Cox
• Leopold Labedz
• Melvin J. Lasky
• John O'Sullivan
• Pedro Schwartz
• Hon. Frank Shakespeare

Dr. Philip Towle

Dr. G. R. Urban

Alan Lee Williams

Prof. Albert Wohlstetter

Contact

The IEDSS operated out of 13/14 Golden Square while 12a was used by Brian Crozier’s Institute for the Study of Conflict. Round the corner from Poland Street London, W1P 3FP

Publications

Kuzio, T. (1995) "Back from the Brink", Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies. London: Alliance Publishers Ltd.

Occasional paper No 7: 'Peace studies: a critical survey' by Caroline Cox and Roger Scruton.

Occasional paper No 9: 'Idealism, Realism and the Myth of Appeasement' by Jeane Kirkpatrick.

Occasional paper No 13: 'The Soviet connection': 'State sponsorship of terrorism' by Jillian Becker.

Occasional paper No 14: 'Neglect and betrayal: war and violence in modern sociology' by Donald Marsland.

Institute for European Defence & Strategic Studies press release: 'Sociology courses infected with anti-NATO bias, says report' Occasional paper No 15: 'World studies: education or indoctrination?' by Roger Scruton.

Institute for European Defence & Strategic Studies press release: "Curriculum activists" waging propaganda war in schools'.