The International Freedom Foundation (IFF) was a self-described
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 ...
group established in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
founded in 1986 by former
lobbyist
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...
Jack Abramoff
Jack Allan Abramoff (; born February 28, 1959) is an American lobbyist, businessman, film producer, writer, and convicted felon. He was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation led by Earl Devaney that resulted in his conviction ...
. Its purported aim was to promote individual and collective freedoms worldwide: freedom of thought; free speech; free association;
free enterprise
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ...
; and, the
free market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...
principle. It came into being after the
Democratic International The Democratic International, also known as the Jamboree in Jamba, was a 1985 meeting of anti-Communist rebels held at the headquarters of UNITA in Jamba, Angola.J. Easton, Nina. ''Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade'', 2 ...
, a 1985 meeting of anti-Communist rebels held at the headquarters of
UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( pt, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, abbr. UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for ...
in
Jamba, Angola
Jamba is a town in Angola, located in the southeastern province of Cuando Cubango, just north of the Namibian border along the Caprivi Strip.
The town is best known as the former military headquarters of UNITA, a rebel movement supported by ...
. The IFF campaigned against regimes and movements it described as
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, ...
allies. To achieve its aim the IFF, with offices in London and
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
, sponsored symposia with high-profile speakers such as
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
. Among its eight periodicals, the IFF published a monthly newsletter—the ''Freedom Bulletin''—with three editions: International; UK/Europe; and, Republic of South Africa. The IFF ceased its activities in 1993.
Funding
According to a ''
Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'' article entitled "Front for Apartheid: Washington-based
think-tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental ...
said to be part of ruse to prolong power" of July 16, 1995, the IFF was alleged to have been funded by
apartheid South Africa
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
in the amount of $1.5 million per year from 1986. In return for this funding, South Africa was said to have used the IFF as an instrument to portray the
African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...
(ANC) together with its leaders,
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo (27 October 191724 April 1993) was a South African anti-apartheid politician and revolutionary who served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991.
Biography
Higher education
Oliv ...
and the imprisoned
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
, as terrorists and as sympathetic to Soviet communism. Code-named ''Operation Babushka'', the IFF succeeded in recruiting a large number of Republican politicians and conservative intellectuals to influence US policies towards the apartheid regime, and to counteract growing domestic and international pressure for the imposition of economic sanctions against South Africa.
The IFF's first chairman was Duncan Sellars. Its Washington lobbyist/film producer,
Jack Abramoff
Jack Allan Abramoff (; born February 28, 1959) is an American lobbyist, businessman, film producer, writer, and convicted felon. He was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation led by Earl Devaney that resulted in his conviction ...
, was said by ''Newsday'' to have recruited willing—but perhaps unwitting—Republican politicians including: Senator
Jesse Helms
Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...
; Rep.
Dan Burton
Danny Lee Burton (born June 21, 1938) is an American politician. Burton is the former U.S. Representative for , and previously the , serving from 1983 until 2013. He is a member of the Republican Party and was part of the Tea Party Caucus.
Ea ...
; Rep.
Philip Crane
Philip Miller Crane (November 3, 1930 – November 8, 2014) was an American politician. He was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 2005, representing the 8th District of Illinois in the northwestern s ...
; Rep.
Robert Dornan
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
; and
Alan Keyes
Alan Lee Keyes (born August 7, 1950) is an American politician, political activist, author, and perennial candidate who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 1985 to 1987. A member of the Repub ...
. None of these five politicians—and neither Sellars nor Abramoff—admitted to being aware of any South African funding. Had they known that they were effectively working to further the interests of a foreign government, they would have been required under US law to register as a ''
foreign agent
A foreign agent is any person or entity actively carrying out the interests of a foreign country while located in another host country, generally outside the protections offered to those working in their official capacity for a diplomatic missio ...
'' with the
Justice Department
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
. In apparent support of the politicians' denial, a former member of SA's Directorate of Military Intelligence, Major
Craig Williamson
Craig Michael Williamson (born 1949), is a former officer in the South African Police, who was exposed as a spy and assassin for the Security Branch (South Africa), Security Branch in 1980. Williamson was involved in a series of events involvi ...
, told ''Newsday'' that ''Operation Babushka'' was designed so that the people it recruited would be unaware of the foreign funding—they would simply be reinforcing their own principled views on South Africa and the ANC. But, in relation to Jack Abramoff—who produced a South African-funded movie ''
Red Scorpion
''Red Scorpion'' is a 1988 American action film starring Dolph Lundgren and directed by Joseph Zito. Lundgren appears as a Soviet special forces operative sent to assassinate an anti-communist rebel leader in Africa, only to side with the rebe ...
'' in
South-West Africa
South West Africa ( af, Suidwes-Afrika; german: Südwestafrika; nl, Zuidwest-Afrika) was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola (Portuguese colony before 1 ...
(now
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
) in 1988—Williamson indicated that Abramoff would undoubtedly have known about the source of the IFF's funding. Another former SA intelligence official, Colonel Vic McPherson, declared to ''Newsday'' how pleased he was with the performance of the IFF: "They were not just good in intelligence, but in political warfare." In 1992, under pressure from
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
, funding for the IFF was withdrawn by President
F. W. de Klerk and it closed down the following year.
Vic McPherson and Craig Williamson spoke to ''Newsday'' before the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act became law on July 26, 1995, and therefore before South Africa's
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state act ...
(TRC) began its case hearings in April 1996. McPherson and Williamson (along with seven others) applied for and were eventually granted TRC amnesty in 1999 for participating in the bombing in March 1982 of the ANC offices in London.
London UK office
The IFF (UK) published an occasional ''Freedom Bulletin''. The January 1989 edition (no.5, 8 pages) was devoted exclusively to opposing the Reagan-Gorbachev Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement, which had been signed at the Washington Summit in December 1987. They called for its abandonment and stated that from a Western angle it was appeasement.
The director of the IFF's London office, at 10 Storey's Gate, Westminster, was Marc Gordon (b. 1966). On January 31, 1989 in a
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
interview, Gordon praised
Western Goals (UK) Western Goals may refer to:
*The Western Goals Foundation, a private intelligence dissemination network active on the right-wing in the United States
*The Western Goals Institute
Western Goals Institute (WGI) was a far-right pressure group and ...
for its activities in "exposing left-wing political activities of charities", such as
Oxfam
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International.
History
Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...
and
Christian Aid
Christian Aid is the relief and development agency of 41 Christian (Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox) churches in the UK and Ireland, and works to support sustainable development, eradicate poverty, support civil society and provide disaster ...
. The IFF strenuously opposed the June 1989 visit to London of Dr.
Andries Treurnicht
Andries Petrus Treurnicht (19 February 1921 – 22 April 1993) was a South African politician, Minister of Education during the Soweto Riots and for a short time leader of the National Party in Transvaal. In 1982 he founded and led the Conse ...
of the
Conservative Party (South Africa)
The Conservative Party of South Africa ( af, Konserwatiewe Party van Suid-Afrika) was a far-right South African political party that sought to preserve many aspects of apartheid in the system's final decade, and formed the official opposition i ...
, organised by the
Western Goals Institute
Western Goals Institute (WGI) was a far-right pressure group and think-tank in Britain, formed in 1989 from Western Goals UK, which was founded in 1985 as an offshoot of the U.S. Western Goals Foundation.''Labour Research'', November 1988, p. 2. ...
. Gordon stated that the IFF was against ''apartheid''. Gordon was publicly disowned by the UK
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
after he claimed to have gone on a patrol with
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 ...
Contra
Contra may refer to:
Places
* Contra, Virginia
* Contra Costa Canal, an aqueduct in the U.S. state of California
* Contra Costa County, California
* Tenero-Contra, a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland ...
rebels in
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
and was photographed holding an assault rifle.
On August 1, 1989, during the debate about whether or not the
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
Chinese should be given British passports, Gordon stated that "as regards Hong Kong, the IFF believes human labour should not be subject to restrictions on its movement". By September 25, 1992, Gordon was railing against the Western Goals Institute, and urged the Conservative Party to expel WGI members, a move which the ''
London Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' described as "doubtless assisted by his South African paymasters". In response, WGI's Gregory Lauder-Frost wrote to the ''
Jewish Chronicle'' on 25 September 1992 stating that "the Conservative Party has always been a broad church. However, Marc Gordon's I.F.F.'s support for the importing to our overcrowded island of 3,000,000 Hong Kong Chinese would not, I believe, endear him to the vast majority of grass-roots conservatives."
Without revealing his political past, Gordon got a post with Sir
James Goldsmith
Sir James Michael Goldsmith (26 February 1933 – 18 July 1997) was a French-British financier, tycoon''Billionaire: The Life and Times of Sir James Goldsmith'' by Ivan Fallon and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family.
His cont ...
's
Referendum Party
The Referendum Party was a Eurosceptic, single-issue political party that was active in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997. The party's sole objective was for a referendum to be held on the nature of the UK's membership of the European Union ...
, where he was helping to choose candidates in 1996. It emerged that Gordon had been Vice-Chairman of the West Midlands
Federation of Conservative Students
The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was the student organisation of the British Conservative Party from the late 1940s to 1986. It was created to act as a bridge between the student movement and the Conservative Party. It produced sever ...
before it was controversially banned by the then Tory Chairman,
Norman Tebbit, in 1987, for "its extremist views".
[('']London Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'', September 11, 1996, p.5)
References
{{Reflist, 2
*''
Newsday
''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'' Sunday July 16, 1995 Dele Olojede (in South Africa) and Timothy M. Phelps (in Washington) ''Front for Apartheid: Washington-based
think-tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental ...
said to be part of ruse to prolong power'' (Dele Olojede, who wrote the ''Newsday'' article, was joint winner of the 2005
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting
This Pulitzer Prize has been awarded since 1942 for a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, including United Nations correspondence. In its first six years (1942–1947), it was called the Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic R ...
.)
* ''Encyclopedia of Associations'' 1993
External links
Text of ''Newsday'' article*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060104235015/http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001865.html ''Newsday'' excerpts
Organizations established in 1986
Organizations disestablished in 1993
Organisations associated with apartheid
Front organizations
Defunct organisations based in South Africa
Apartheid government
Apartheid in propaganda
Foreign policy political advocacy groups in the United States
South Africa–United States relations
Anti-communist organizations in the United States
1986 establishments in Washington, D.C.