ONE of the biggest questions in Washington these days is what to do about "the orphans." In current capital usage, the orphans are the nearly 100 private agencies that had been getting CIA money and were left high and dry by the White House order that all such undercover support must cease—preferably by year's end. Whatever the merits or demerits of the CIA's methods, most of these groups served the U.S. well in its contest for the faith and understanding of the world's workers and thinkers, students and teachers, refugees from yesterday and leaders of tomorrow.
The organizations—which had received the funds, often unwittingly, through dummy foundations—were orphaned in the wake of the Ramparts magazine expose of the CIA's connection with the National Student Association. This led to the appointment of a presidential commission, headed by Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach, to figure out how the gap left by the CIA should be filled. Ever since, new information about the CIA's past activities has continued to surface. Last week Thomas Wardell Braden, 49, a politically ambitious former California newspaper publisher who served with the CIA between 1950 and 1954, added further details. In an article in the Saturday Evening Post, Braden indignantly defended the CIA against charges that it had been "immoral" by recording some of the extremely useful things it accomplished early in the cold war.
Question of Secrecy
He recalled giving money to Irving Brown, of the American Federation of Labor, "to pay off his strong-arm squads in Mediterranean ports, so that American supplies could be unloaded against the opposition of Communist dock workers." Braden said that CIA funds also went to Victor Reuther, brother and assistant of President Walter Reuther of the United Automobile Workers, and to Jay Lovestone, of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, for the purpose of helping various anti-Communist unions abroad. His article is highly self-flattering and oversimplified, but most of his statements appear to be correct. A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany called Braden's account "a damn lie"—but added cautiously, "to the best of my knowledge."
Braden also reported that the CIA had helped finance the anti-Communist Congress for Cultural Freedom and, through it, several intellectual magazines, including Encounter, a U.S.British monthly. Braden added that a CIA agent had become an Encounter editor (this also was denied). Complaining that they had been deceived by past denials of CIA support, Editors Frank Kermode and Stephen Spender resigned.
Indignation about the CIA, including mutterings about "corruption," contained a lot of real or feigned naivete, as well as some deliberate malice toward U.S. policy. Still, there are legitimate issues at stake. Few deny the U.S. Government's right to carry on secret operations. The question is whether, in a free society, it is right, wise—or necessary—for supposedly independent organizations to receive secret subsidies.