The National Committee for a Free Europe, later known as Free Europe Committee, was an

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and 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, when the United States and the ...

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

(CIA) front organization, founded on June 1, 1949, in New York City, which worked for the spreading of American influence in Europe and to oppose the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

one.

History

The committee was founded by

Allen Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he o ...

, later to be Director of Central Intelligence, in conjunction with

DeWitt Clinton Poole DeWitt Clinton Poole (1885–1952) was an American intelligence officer. He served as U.S. Consul General in Moscow, and acted as America's spymaster in Revolutionary Russia. 1918 Ambassadors plot to assassinate Lenin Poole arrived in Moscow in ...

. Early board members included

Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

, Lucius D. Clay,

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cinem ...

, Henry Luce, Mark Ethridge,

Charles Phelps Taft II Charles Phelps Taft II (September 20, 1897 – June 24, 1983) was a U.S. Republican Party politician and member of the Taft family. From 1955 to 1957, he served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio. Like other members of his family, Taft was a Repu ...

and

DeWitt Wallace William Roy DeWitt Wallace; (November 12, 1889 – March 30, 1981), publishing as DeWitt Wallace, was an American magazine publisher. Wallace co-founded ''Reader's Digest'' with his wife Lila Bell Wallace, publishing the first issue in 1922. Lif ...

. From 1951 to 1952,

Charles Douglas Jackson General Charles Douglas (C. D.) Jackson (March 16, 1902 – September 18, 1964) was a United States government propagandist and senior executive of Time Inc. As an expert on psychological warfare he served in the Office of Strategic Services in W ...

served as its president. The organization created and oversaw the anti-communist broadcast service Radio Free Europe. CIA subsidies to the Free Europe Committee ended in 1971 which caused restructuring to its operations.A Look Back… The National Committee for Free Europe, 1949
/ref> The Free Europe Committee sent balloons with leaflets from West Germany to the Eastern Bloc countries. Each balloon was able to drop 100,000 leaflets.

References

External links

''The Soviet Peace Myth''
by Leon Dennen, published by the NCFE {{Authority control 1949 establishments in the United States Anti-communist organizations in the United States Political advocacy groups in the United States Soviet Union–United States relations Organizations established in 1949 Central Intelligence Agency front organizations

History

See also

References

External links