The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) is the name used by a succession of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

neoconservative Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and coun ...

and

anti-communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...

foreign policy interest group __NOTOC__ A foreign policy interest group, according to Thomas Ambrosio, is a domestic advocacy group which seeks to directly or indirectly influence their government's foreign policy.Ambrosio, Thomas. 2002. "Ethnic identity groups and U.S. fo ...

s. Throughout its four iterations—in the 1950s, the 1970s, the 2000s, and 2019, it has tried to influence all the presidential administrations since

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

, achieving notable success during the

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over D ...

Overview

The committee first met in 1950, founded by

Tracy Voorhees Tracy Stebbins Voorhees (June 30, 1890 – September 25, 1974) served as Under Secretary of the United States Army from August 1949 to April 1950. He held numerous positions within the U.S. Government as a civilian. A practicing attorney, Voorhee ...

, to promote the plans proposed in

NSC 68 United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, better known as NSC68, was a 66-page top secret National Security Council (NSC) policy paper drafted by the Department of State and Department of Defense and presented to President Harry ...

Paul Nitze Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 – October 19, 2004) was an American politician who served as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. He is best k ...

and

Dean Acheson Dean Gooderham Acheson (pronounced ; April 11, 1893October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As the 51st U.S. Secretary of State, he set the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration from 1949 to 1953. He was also Truman ...

. It lobbied the government directly and sought to influence

public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...

through a publicity campaign, notably a weekly radio broadcast on the

Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...

throughout 1951. This iteration was effectively disbanded after 1952, following the appointment of Voorhees and others to senior positions in the administration. It was privately revived in March 1976 to try to influence the presidential candidates and their advisors. After

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

won the election, CPD went public again and spent the next four years lobbying, particularly against

détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...

and the

SALT II The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of ta ...

agreement. Its

hawkish In politics, a war hawk, or simply hawk, is someone who favors war or continuing to escalate an existing conflict as opposed to other solutions. War hawks are the opposite of doves. The terms are derived by analogy with the birds of the same name ...

conclusions influenced the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

's future reporting on the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

threat. This iteration of the CPD provided 33 officials to the

Ronald Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over D ...

, plus Reagan himself.

History

First CPD (1950s)

On 12 December 1950, James Conant,

and

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime ...

announced the creation of the committee on the Present Danger. The group was formed in order to support the Truman Administration's remilitarization plans contained within

. The 'present danger' to which the group's title referred was "the aggressive designs of the Soviet Union", the CPD announced.

Members of the First CPD

James B. Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916. ...

(Chairman) * Tracy S. Voorhees (Vice Chairman) *

Julius Ochs Adler Julius Ochs Adler (December 3, 1892 – October 3, 1955) was an American publisher, journalist, and highly decorated United States Army officer with the rank of major general. He distinguished himself during World War I as Major and battalion com ...

Raymond B. Allen Raymond B. Allen (1902-1986) was an American educator. He served as the President of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington from 1946 to 1951, and as the first Chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles from 1951 to 1959 ...

Frank Altschul Frank Altschul (April 21, 1887 – May 29, 1981) was an American financier at General American Investors Company,Krebs, Albin (May 30, 1981)New York Times: "Frank Altschul, A Banker and Noted Philanthropist."''New York Times''. and founder of the ...

Dillon Anderson Dillon Anderson (July 14, 1906 – January 29, 1974) was an official in the federal government of the United States during the Eisenhower administration (1953–61). He served as the 2nd National Security Advisor from April 2, 1955, to September ...

* William Douglas Arant * James Phinney Baxter, III *

Laird Bell Laird Bell (1883–1965) was a distinguished attorney and Democrat who founded a leading Chicago law firm and endowed several charitable institutions. Bell was an extraordinarily active contributor in a variety of social and not-for-profit ca ...

* Barry Bingham * Harry A. Bullis *

William L. Clayton William Lockhart "Will" Clayton (February 7, 1880 – February 8, 1966) was an American business leader and government official. Much of his business career centered on cotton trading. He and his three brothers-in-law formed a partnership that gr ...

Robert Cutler Robert Cutler (June 12, 1895 – May 8, 1974) was an American government official who was the first person appointed as the president's National Security Advisor. He served US President Dwight Eisenhower in that role between 1953 and 1955 and fr ...

* R. Ammi Cutter * Mrs. Dwight Davis * E.L. DeGolyer * Harold Willis Dodds * Charles Dollard *

William J. Donovan William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Bur ...

* Goldthwaite H. Dorr *

David Dubinsky David Dubinsky (; born David Isaac Dobnievski; February 22, 1892 – September 17, 1982) was a Belarusian-born American labor leader and politician. He served as president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) between 1932 ...

* Leonard K. Firestone * Truman K. Gibson Jr. * Miss Meta Glass *

Arthur J. Goldberg Arthur Joseph Goldberg (August 8, 1908January 19, 1990) was an American statesman and jurist who served as the 9th U.S. Secretary of Labor, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the 6th United States Ambassador t ...

Samuel Goldwyn Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor a ...

* W. W. Grant * Edward S. Greenbaum *

Paul G. Hoffman Paul Gray Hoffman (April 26, 1891October 8, 1974) was an American automobile company executive, statesman, and global development aid administrator. He was the first administrator of the Economic Cooperation Administration, where he led the imp ...

* Monte H. Lemann * William L. Marbury *

Stanley Marcus Harold Stanley Marcus"Personal" (column), ''The Dallas Morning News'', November 9, 1905, page 5. (April 20, 1905 – January 22, 2002) was president (1950–1972) and later chairman of the board (1972–1976) of the luxury retailer Neiman ...

* Dr. William C. Menninger * Frederick A. Middlebush * James L. Morrill *

Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe fo ...

John Lord O'Brian John Lord O'Brian (October 14, 1874 – April 11, 1973) was an American lawyer who held public offices in the administrations of five U.S. presidents between 1909 and 1945. O'Brian has been recognized by scholars for his commitment to civil liberti ...

* Floyd B. Odlum *

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

Robert P. Patterson Robert Porter Patterson Sr. (February 12, 1891 – January 22, 1952) was an American judge who served as United States Under Secretary of War, Under Secretary of War under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and US Secretary of War, U.S. Secretary of ...

* Howard C. Petersen *

Daniel A. Poling Daniel Alfred Poling (November 30, 1884 – February 7, 1968) was an American clergyman. Early life and family Poling was born in Portland, Oregon, to Charles Cupp Poling and Savilla Kring Poling in 1884. His father was also a minister, and two o ...

* Stanley Resor *

Samuel Rosenman Samuel Irving Rosenman (February 13, 1896 – June 24, 1973) was an American lawyer, judge, Democratic Party activist and presidential speechwriter. He coined the term "New Deal", and helped articulate liberal policies during the heyday of the N ...

* Theodore W. Schultz *

Robert E. Sherwood Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He is the author of '' Waterloo Bridge, Idiot's Delight, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Rebecca, There Shall Be No Night, The Best Years of Our ...

* Edgar W. Smith * Robert G. Sproul * Robert L. Stearns * Edmund A. Walsh, S.J. * W. W. Waymack * Henry M. Wriston * J. D. Zellerbach

Second CPD (1970s)

On 11 November 1976, the second iteration was announced. The name of this version of the committee was "borrow d from the 1950s version, and was not a direct successor. Some of its members lobbied for, and were members of, the 1976

Team B Team B was a competitive analysis exercise commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to analyze threats the Soviet Union posed to the security of the United States. It was created, in part, due to a 1974 publication by Albert Wohlstett ...

, providing an opposing view to the

's ''Team A''. Thirty-three officials of the Reagan administration were CPD members, including

Director of Central Intelligence The director of central intelligence (DCI) was the head of the American Central Intelligence Agency from 1946 to 2005, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Security C ...

William Casey William Joseph Casey (March 13, 1913 – May 6, 1987) was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the Central Intelligence Agency ...

National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...

Richard V. Allen Richard Vincent Allen (born January 1, 1936) was the United States National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1982, having been Reagan's chief foreign policy advisor from 1977. He has been a fellow of the Hoover Institutio ...

United States Ambassador to the United Nations The United States ambassador to the United Nations is the leader of the U.S. delegation, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is formally known as the permanent representative of the United States of America to the United Nations ...

Jeane Kirkpatrick Jeane Duane Kirkpatrick (née Jordan; November 19, 1926December 7, 2006) was an American diplomat and political scientist who played a major role in the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration. An ardent anticommunist, she was a lo ...

Secretary of the Navy The secretary of the Navy (or SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department (component organization) within the United States Department of Defense. By law, the se ...

John Lehman John Francis Lehman Jr. (born September 14, 1942) is an American private equity investor and writer who served as Secretary of the Navy (1981–1987) in the Ronald Reagan administration where he promoted the creation of a 600-ship Navy. From 2003 ...

, Secretary of State

George Shultz George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fou ...

, and

Assistant Secretary of Defense Assistant Secretary of Defense is a title used for many high-level executive positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense within the U.S. Department of Defense. The Assistant Secretary of Defense title is junior to Under Secretary of Defens ...

Richard Perle Richard Norman Perle (born September 16, 1941) is an American political advisor who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to S ...

. Reagan himself was a member in 1979.

Founding members of the second CPD

* Achilles, Theodore C. * Allen, Richard V. * Allison, John M. * Anderson, Eugenie * Beam, Jacob D. * Bellow, Saul * Bendetsen, Karl R. * Burgess, W. Randolph * Cabot, John M. * Casey, William J, * Chaikin, Sol C. * Cline, Ray S. * Colby, William E. * Connally, John B. * Connor, John T. * Darden, Colgate W. Jr. * Dean, Arthur H. * Dillon, C. Douglas * Dogole, S. Harrison * Dominick, Peter H. * Dowling, Walter * DuBrow, Evelyn * Farrell, James T. * Fellman, David * Fowler, Henry H. * Frelinghuysen, Peter H. B. * Glazer, Nathan * Goodpaster, Andrew J. * Grace, J. Peter * Gray, Gordon * Handlin, Oscar * Hauser, Rita E. * Hurewitz, J. C. * Johnson, Chalmers * Jordan, David C. * Kampelman, Max M. * Kemp, Geoffrey * Keyserling, Leon H. * Kirkland, Lane * Kirkpatrick, Jeanne J. * Kohler Foy D. * Krogh, Peter * Lefever, Ernest W. * Lemnitzer, Lyman L. * Libby, W. F. * Lipset, Seymour Martin * Lovestone, Jay * Luce, Clare Boothe * Martin, William McChesney Jr. * McCabe, Edward A. * McGhee, George C. * McNair, Robert E. * Morse, Joshua M. * Muller, Steven * Mulliken, Robert S. * Myerson, Bess * Nitze, Paul H. * Olmsted, George * Packard, David * Podhoretz, Midge Dector * Podhoretz, Norman * Ramey, Estelle R. * Ramsey, Paul * Ridgway, Matthew B. * Rostow, Eugene V. * Rusk, Dean * Rustin, Bayard * Saltzman, Charles E. * Scaife, Richard M. * Schifter, Richard * Seabury, Paul * Shanker, Albert * Tanham, George K. * Taylor, Maxwell D. * Teller, Edward * Tyroler, Charles, II. * Van Cleave, William R. * Walker, Charls E. * Wigner, Eugene P. * Wilcox, Francis O. * Wolfe, Bertram D. * Zumwalt, Elmo R.

Third CPD (2004)

In June 2004, '' The Hill'' reported that a third incarnation of CPD was being planned, to address the

War on Terrorism The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant I ...

. This incarnation of the committee was still active as of 2008. The head of the 2004 CPD, PR pro and former

Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

adviser

Peter D. Hannaford Peter Dor Hannaford (September 21, 1932 – September 5, 2015) was an American business consultant and author who was a political consultant to California Governor and U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Background A native of Glendale, California, ...

, explained, "we saw a parallel" between the Soviet threat and the threat from terrorism. The message that CPD will convey through lobbying, media work and conferences is that the war on terror needs to be won, he said. Members of the 2004 CPD included Vice President for Policy Larry Haas, Senator

Joseph I. Lieberman Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for Vi ...

, former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr., former National Security Advisor to President Reagan,

Robert C. McFarlane Robert Carl "Bud" McFarlane (July 12, 1937 – May 12, 2022) was an American Marine Corps officer who served as National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1985. Within the Reagan administration, McFarlane was a leading arc ...

, and Reagan administration official and 1976 Committee founder

Max Kampelman Max Kampelman (born Max Kampelmacher; November 7, 1920 – January 25, 2013) was an American diplomat. Biography Kampelman was born in New York, New York to Jewish Austrian immigrant parents on 7 November 1920. He grew up in the Bronx, New Yor ...

. At the July 20, 2004 launching of the 2004 CPD, Lieberman and Senator

Jon Kyl Jon Llewellyn Kyl ( ; born April 25, 1942) is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States Senator for Arizona from 1995 to 2013 and again in 2018. A Republican, he held both of Arizona's Senate seats at different times, ser ...

were identified as the honorary co-chairs.

Fourth CPD (2019)

The fourth CPD was established on March 25, 2019, branding itself "Committee on the Present Danger: China" (CPDC). Members include both China-focused specialists and others without specific experience related to the country, and are predominantly conservative.

Members of the Fourth CPD

* Brian Kennedy, Chairman *

Frank Gaffney Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (born April 5, 1953) is an American anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist and the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked for the federal government in multiple posts, including ...

, Vice Chairman *

Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump during t ...

William Bennett William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office of ...

William G. Boykin William Gerald "Jerry" Boykin (born April 19, 1948) is a retired American lieutenant general who was the United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2007. During his 36-year career i ...

Gordon G. Chang Gordon Guthrie Chang (born July 5, 1951) is a columnist, author, and lawyer. He is the author of ''The Coming Collapse of China'' in which he attempted to predict the collapse of China and claimed that it would collapse by 2011. In December 201 ...

* Nicholas Eftimiades * Kevin Freeman *

Bob Fu Bob Fu () is a Chinese American pastor. In 2002, he founded China Aid, which provides legal aid to Christians in China, and has been its president since then. Bob Fu was born in Shandong in 1968 and studied English literature at Liaocheng Unive ...

Mark Helprin Mark Helprin (born June 28, 1947) is an American novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and Mem ...

* Steven L. Kwast * Tidal McCoy *

Bob McEwen Robert D. McEwen (born January 12, 1950) is an American lobbyist and former Republican Party politician. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from southern Ohio's Sixth District, from January 3, 1981 to January 3, 199 ...

* Thomas McInerney *

Steven W. Mosher Steven Westley Mosher (born May 9, 1948) is an American social scientist, anti-abortion activist, neoconservative, anti-communist, and president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), which opposes population control and abortion. In the earl ...

* Scott Perry *

Benedict Peters Benedict Peters is a Nigerian billionaire who founded the Aiteo Group, Nigeria's largest indigenous oil producing firm. As of November 2014, he had an estimated net worth of US$2.7 billion. He is ranked by Ventures Africa as the 17th richest p ...

* Miles Prentice *

Suzanne Scholte Suzanne Scholte (born 1959, Connecticut) is an American human rights activist and congressional candidate. She is the president of the Defense Forum Foundation. She is also the Vice Co-Chair of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and ...

Arthur Waldron Arthur Waldron (born December 13, 1948) is an American historian. Since 1997, Waldron has been the Lauder Professor of International Relations in the department of history at the University of Pennsylvania. He works chiefly on Asia, China in parti ...

* Frank Wolf * R. James Woolsey Jr. *

Yang Jianli Yang Jianli (born Lanling County, Linyi, southern Shandong, China, August 15, 1963) is a Chinese dissident with a United States residency. He is the son of a Communist Party leader. Yang was detained in China in 2002 and was released in 2007. ...

Criticisms

The fourth iteration of CPD, focused on China, has been criticized as promoting a revival of

Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...

politics in the United States, and for its ties to conspiracy theorist

and conservative activist

. David Skidmore, writing for ''

The Diplomat ''The Diplomat'' is an international online news magazine covering politics, society, and culture in the Indo-Pacific region. It is based in Washington, D.C. It was originally an Australian bi-monthly print magazine, founded by Minh Bui Jones ...

'', saw it as another instance of "adolescent hysteria" in US diplomacy, as another of the "fevered crusades

hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...

have produced some of the costliest mistakes in American foreign policy".

References

External links

Committee on the Present Danger: China

CPD Home page (Third CPD)

The Committee on the Present Danger Papers at the Hoover Institution
{{Authority control Political and economic think tanks in the United States Foreign policy and strategy think tanks in the United States United States political action committees Anti-communist organizations in the United States