International Rescue Committee

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The International Rescue Committee was founded in 1942 to assist social democratic refugees from Europe. During the Cold War it became increasingly integrated into the US foreign policy establishment.[1]

History

International Relief Association

The earliest precursor of the International Rescue Committee was the International Relief Association (IRA) founded in Germany in 1931 by the German Communist Party Opposition (KPO) and the Socialist Workers Party (SAP), to aid victims of state repression. It was forced to move to Paris when the Nazis came to power in April 1933.[2]

An American support committee was formed by Jay Lovestone in July 1933. Although Lovestone's main aim to help the KPO, he ensured the organisation was endorsed by a range of progressive luminaries.[3]

Funding from the ILGWU was used to fund refugee, some of it was also secretly diverted to the KPOs resistance activities in Germany.[4]

Emergency Rescue Committee

The evolution of the Lovestoneites towards mainstream social democracy in the late 1930s created a vacuum in refugee activity focused on a broader range of Socialists. The Emergency Rescue Committee was created in 1940 to aid refugees trapped in Vichy following the fall of France. Its key founders were Karl Frank, Reinhold Neibuhr and Joseph Buttinger.[5]

The ERC representative in Marseilles from August 1940 to August 1941, Varian Fry rescued many European refugees, including many who were important intellectuals. He also worked with British intelligence to secure escape routes for British soldiers.[6]

Merger

To end the rivalry between the two organisations, the IRA and the ERC merged in 1942, initially as the International Relief and Rescue Committee. The new organisation was funded from 1943 to 1946 by the National War Fund. It also had close links to the intelligence community through its first treasurer, David Seiferheld, an early recruit to the Office of Strategic Services.[7]

Cold War

The International Rescue Committee was an early entrant into the field of support for political refugees from the Soviet Bloc, but soon found itself sharing the field with outright CIA fronts such as the National Committee for a Free Europe and the American Committee for Liberation.[8] The East European Fund created by the Ford Foundation was also a potential rival.[9]

In the immediate post-war period, the Committee focused on rebuilding the German Social Democrats of the SPD as a bulwark against the Soviets. It strengthened its relationship with the intelligence community by recruiting several OSS veterans to the board, including OSS chief William Donovan.[10]

People

Presidents

Chair

Executive Director

People 2010

Headquarters - New York

Headquarters - Europe

Board of Directors

Overseers

Madeleine K. Albright | Laurent Alpert | Kofi A. Annan | Lila Azam Zanganeh | F. William Barnett | Alan R. Batkin | Georgette F. Bennett | Vera Blinken | Michael Blumenthal | Andrew Brimmer | Jennifer Brokaw, M.D. | Tom Brokaw | Frederick Burkle, M.D. | Nestor Carbonell | Jeremy Carver | Geoffrey Colvin | Karen Cook | Robert M. Cotten | Robert P. DeVecchi | Dina Dublon | Robin Chandler Duke | Jodie Eastman | Katherine Farley | H.R.H. Princess Firyal of Jordan | Harold Ford, Jr. | Theodore J. Forstmann | Jeffrey E. Garten | Evan G. Greenberg | Maurice R. Greenberg | Andrew S. Grove | Morton I. Hamburg | Karen Hein, M.D. | Lucile P. Herbert | Howard Jonas | Marvin Josephson | Alton Kastner | Henry A. Kissinger | Yong Kwok | Reynold Levy | Winston Lord | Dan Lufkin | Vincent A. Mai | John Makinson | Lucretia Martin | Roberto Martinez | Roman Martinez IV | Kati Marton | Jay Mazur | W. Allen Moore | Kathleen Newland | Indra Nooyi | Robert B. Oakley | Sadako Ogata | Sarah O’Hagan | Catherine O’Neill | Susan Patricof | Alexandra L. Peters | David L. Phillips | David N. Pincus | General Colin L. Powell, USA (Retired) | Donald H. Putnam | Bruce C. Ratner | Milbrey Rennie | John Richardson | Felix G. Rohatyn | George Rupp | Jessica T. Seinfeld | Barbara Shailor | James T. Sherwin | Nancy Starr | H. Peter Stern | James C. Strickler, M.D | Lee Thaw | Georgia Travers | Liv Ullmann | William J. Vanden Heuvel | Ronald J. Waldman, M.D. | Rhonda Weingarten | Edwin J. Wesely | Josh Weston | Anne Whitehead | John C. Whitehead | Elie Wiesel | Jonathan L. Wiesner | James D. Wolfensohn | Guy Wyser Pratte[19]

Contact

External Resources

Reading

  • Eric Thomas Chester Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe (31 Aug 1995) ISBN-10: 1563245507 ISBN-13: 978-1563245503
  • Ronald Cohn Jesse Russell International Rescue Committee, VSD (1 Jan 2012)

Notes

  1. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.249.
  2. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.242.
  3. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, pp.8-9.
  4. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.10.
  5. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.11.
  6. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, pp.16-17.
  7. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.18.
  8. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.30.
  9. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.42.
  10. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.60-61.
  11. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.242.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.245.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.246.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.241.
  15. ↑ Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p.244.
  16. ↑ IRC Leadership, International Rescue Committee, accessed 24 February 2010.
  17. ↑ IRC Leadership, International Rescue Committee, accessed 24 February 2010.
  18. ↑ IRC Board of Directors and Overseers, International Rescue Committee, accessed 24 February 2010.
  19. ↑ IRC Board of Directors and Overseers, International Rescue Committee, accessed 24 February 2010.
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