The Jamestown Foundation is a
Washington, D.C.-based
conservative defense policy
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-govern ...
. Founded in 1984 as a platform to support
Soviet defectors, its stated mission today is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends, which it regards as being of current strategic importance to the United States. Jamestown publications focus on China, Russia, Eurasia, and global terrorism.
Founding and mission
The Jamestown Foundation was founded in 1984 after
Arkady Shevchenko, the highest-ranking
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, ...
official ever to defect when he left his position as
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
An under-secretary-general of the United Nations (USG) is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the secretary-general for a renewable term of four years. Under ...
, defected in 1978.
William Geimer, an American lawyer, had been working closely with Shevchenko, and established the foundation as a vehicle to promote the writings of the former Soviet diplomat and those of
Ion Pacepa, a former top
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
n intelligence officer; with the help of the foundation, both defectors published bestselling books.
[Jamestown Foundation]
Origins
The
CIA
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, ...
Director
William J. 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 ...
helped back the formation of The Jamestown Foundation, agreeing with its complaints that the U.S. intelligence community did not provide sufficient funding of Soviet bloc defectors.
The foundation, initially also dedicated to supporting Soviet dissidents, also aided defecting intellectuals from the
Eastern Bloc in disseminating their ideas in the west.
Board of directors
In the past, Jamestown's board of directors has included
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former
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 ...
to
U.S. President 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 ...
. Jamestown's current board includes Dr. Michael Carpenter, the managing director of the
Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Carpenter previously served in the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and in the White House as a foreign policy advisor to current President
Joe Biden (when Biden was
vice president
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
under
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
) as well as on the
National Security Council as Director for Russia. Jamestown's board also includes
Michael G. Vickers, who previously served as the
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
The under secretary of defense for intelligence and security or USD(I&S) is a high-ranking civilian position in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) that acts as the principal civilian advisor ...
and whose role at 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, ...
during the
Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...
was famously featured in
George Crile's 2003 book ''
Charlie Wilson's War.''
As of 2021, the foundation's current board includes General
Michael V. Hayden
Michael Vincent Hayden (born March 17, 1945) is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligenc ...
;
Bruce Hoffman;
Matthew Bryza
Matthew James Bryza (born February 16, 1964) is a former United States diplomat. His last post in the United States foreign service was the United States Ambassador to Azerbaijan.
Education
Bryza graduated from Stanford University with a Bache ...
;
Robert Spalding, who acted as an architect of US-China strategy while serving on the National Security Council in the
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
administration; Michelle Van Cleave;
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 ...
; and
Timothy J. Keating, while Jamestown's fellows included
Vladimir Socor;
Janusz Bugajski;
Paul Goble;
Michael Scheuer (who claims to have been fired for criticizing the United States'
relationship with
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
), Thomas Kent, the former president of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty;
Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a Hong Kong-based China specialist; Jacob Zenn, a leading expert on
Boko Haram
Boko Haram, officially known as ''Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād'' ( ar, جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد, lit=Group of the People of Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad), is an Islamic terrorist organization ...
; and Stephen Ulph, a leading expert on
Jihadist
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...
ideology.
Activities
Its primary focus is on
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
,
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
, and global
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
. As of 2008, its publications were ''Eurasia Daily Monitor'', ''Terrorism Monitor'', and ''China Brief.'' Previous publications included ''Eurasia Security Trends'', ''Fortnight in Review'', ''North Korea Review'', ''Russia and Eurasia Review'', ''Russia's Week'', ''Spotlight on Terror'', ''North Caucasus Weekly'', (formerly ''Chechnya Weekly'') and ''Recent From Turkey'' and ''Terrorism Focus''. Along with these publications, Jamestown produces occasional reports and books.
Nikolai Getman collection
The foundation hosted Russian artist
Nikolai Getman
Nikolai Ivanovich Getman or Mykola Ivanovich Hetman (russian: Николай Иванович Гетман, uk, Микола Іванович Гетьман), an artist, was born in 1917 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and died at his home in Orel, Russi ...
's paintings of
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...
camps. Getman was imprisoned for eight years by the Soviet regime for participating in
anti-Soviet propaganda as a result of a caricature of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
that one of his friends had drawn on a cigarette box. He survived, and for four decades he secretly labored at creating a visual record of the Gulag system.
[Getman](_blank)
Retrieved on 9 November 2010 In September 2009, the Jamestown Foundation transferred the Getman collection to the
Heritage Foundation.
Reception
In 2007, the Russian government said the think-tank was spreading anti-Russian propaganda by hosting a debate on violence in the Russian republic of
Ingushetia. According to a statement by the Foreign Ministry of Russia: "Organisers again and again resorted to deliberately spreading slander about the situation in Chechnya and other republics of the Russian
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...
using the services of supporters of terrorists and pseudo-experts. Speakers were given carte blanche to spread extremist propaganda, incite ethnic and inter-religious discord."
In response, Jamestown Foundation president Glen Howard said that Russia was "intimidated by the power of the free word and this goes against the state manipulation of the
media in Russia."
On 8 December 2011, Ambassador
Daniel Benjamin,
State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator for the Obama administration, gave the keynote address at Jamestown's Fifth Annual Terrorism Conference where he praised Jamestown for its research and analysis of terrorism issues.
The Jamestown Foundation was criticized by the Right Web project (now the "Militarist Monitor" project) based at the
Institute for Policy Studies for alleged links to the CIA and for advancing a right-wing,
neoconservative agenda.
In 2020, the office of the
Prosecutor-General of Russia said that Jamestown Foundation's publications sought to fan
separatism in some Russian regions and posed a security threat. It described the Foundation as an "undesirable organisation", which could result in the organisation being banned in Russia under the
Russian foreign agent law.
References
External links
*
Jamestown Foundation profile on Right Web
{{Authority control
Foreign policy and strategy think tanks in the United States
Think tanks established in 1984
Charities based in Washington, D.C.
Undesirable organizations in Russia