With the disclosure that the U.S. National Student Association had been secretly financed by the Central Intelligence Agency for 15 years (TIME, Feb. 24), a Pandora's cashbox of CIA philanthropy sprang open to public view last week.
The convoluted pipelines of foundations used to distribute CIA dollars seemed to be almost as limitless as the curiosity of the newsmen willing to plow through public-record tax files. Recipients of CIA-suspect largesse made an encyclopedic grab bag of organizations ranging from the now defunct Institute of International Labor Research Inc. (headed by Old Socialist Norman Thomas) to the Billy Graham Spanish-American crusade, from the North American Secretariat of Pax Romana and the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes to the International Food and Drink Workers Federation and the Friends of India Committee.
And, despite the academic community's outcry over CIA "subversion" of students, among the organizations receiving money from apparent CIA conduits were several trusteed by distinguished educators and scholars—including the Harvard Law School Fund. Even the National Council of Churches gathered a few dollars. More than a score of dummy fronts, such as the Gotham Foundation, the Beacon Fund, the Borden Trust, the Michigan Fund, the Edsel Fund, the Andrew Hamilton Fund, fed money from CIA into legitimate foundations such as the J. M. Kaplan Fund, the M. D. Anderson Foundation, the Hoblitzelle Foundation and the David, Josephine, and Winfield Baird Foundation, which, in turn, completed a supposedly secret "triple pass" by dispensing money to various organizations deemed needy—and worthy—by CIA.
"Evil Effects." Criticism of CIA's financial involvement—however innocuous it may have been—came from every corner of the world. Dan Mclntosh, president of the Berkeley student body, cried that as a result of the N.S.A. affair, "the credibility of U.S. students abroad is greatly damaged." Robert A. Dahl, president of the American Political Science Association, said "there are bound to be evil effects" from CIA's money funnel. Even George Meany, whose A.F.L.-C.I.O. international affiliates had long been richly endowed by the espionage agency's foundations, self-right-eously proclaimed his "natural ingrained opposition to spy activities."
Talk was strong on Capitol Hill, too. Wisconsin's Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson deplored "an alarming trend in this country toward the use of police-state tactics." Minnesota's Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy introduced a resolution asking for a "select committee" to probe CIA. McCarthy's proposal drew support from Nelson and William Fulbright, but at week's end congressional leaders turned thumbs down on a probe, arguing that there was enough surveillance of CIA by Administration watchdogs and oversight committees in both houses.