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===Allegations of links to the Soviet Union during the Cold War=== | ===Allegations of links to the Soviet Union during the Cold War=== | ||
According to an ] memorandum dated May 7, 1970, it identified the institute's co-founder ] as a communist that had "known contacts with intelligence agents from Soviet and Soviet bloc countries."<ref>United States Government, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memorandum to Director, FBI, Bufile 105-185148, from Sac. WFO (100-45302) (P), May 4, 1970, p. 1 ("communist"), p. 2 (Confidential). Author's file on IPS/TNI. </ref> and whose speeches were "published by the East Coast Communist newspaper 'Daily World'."<ref>United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, WFO 100-45302, Title Richard Jackson Barnet, May 13, 1971, p. 1 ("Character: Security Matter – Communist"), p. 3, 4 (Daily World). Author's file on IPS/TNI.</ref> | According to an ] memorandum dated May 7, 1970, it identified the institute's co-founder ] as a communist that had "known contacts with intelligence agents from Soviet and Soviet bloc countries."<ref>United States Government, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memorandum to Director, FBI, Bufile 105-185148, from Sac. WFO (100-45302) (P), May 4, 1970, p. 1 ("communist"), p. 2 (Confidential). Author's file on IPS/TNI. </ref> and whose speeches were "published by the East Coast Communist newspaper 'Daily World'."<ref>United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, WFO 100-45302, Title Richard Jackson Barnet, May 13, 1971, p. 1 ("Character: Security Matter – Communist"), p. 3, 4 (Daily World). Author's file on IPS/TNI.</ref> | ||
Similarly, in his book ''Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute for Policy Studies'' Steven Powell writes about his time as an ] at IPS's Washington Office, noting Soviet diplomats who sought to cultivate IPS staff members or showed up at IPS conferences in New York or Washington<ref>{{cite book | last = Powell| first = S.| middle = Steven authorlink = S. Steven powell | year = 1987| title = Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies | publisher = Green Hill Publishers, Inc.| location = ] | page = 329}}</ref> and his "strange encounters with communist East Bloc diplomats who frequented the Institute of Policy Studies"<ref>{{cite book | last = Powell| first = S.| middle = Steven authorlink = S. Steven powell | year = 1987| title = Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies | publisher = Green Hill Publishers, Inc.| location = ] | page = 329-334}}</ref> In particular, Powell gives an anecdotal example of how a Soviet diplomat (who he claims "visited IPS over a dozen times") "perked up when I talked about the possibility of going into the foreign service or becoming a foreign correspondent."<ref>{{cite book | last = Powell| first = S.| middle = Steven authorlink = S. Steven powell | year = 1987| title = Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies | publisher = Green Hill Publishers, Inc.| location = ] | page = 333}}</ref> Moreover, ex-chairman of the Board of Trustees of IPS Peter Weiss<ref></ref> is married to Cora Rubin Weiss, the daughter of Samuel Rubin who according to Dutch Intelligence "aroused some interest because of his membership of the Communist Party and the underground Comintern in the United States."<ref></ref> Furthermore, the Institute created an 'Organizing Committee for the Fifth Estate' in 1974 as part of its "Center for National Security Studies" which published (and still publishes) the magazine ]. CounterSpy has in turn been the subject of scrutiny by officials and intelligence agencies, who claim that the magazine's "driving force"<ref>Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) (confidential Dutch intelligence report, 1982), p. 7, 8.</ref> was ex-CIA agent and alleged Cuban/KGB agent<ref name = "sword3">Andrew p. 230, referencing {{cite book | Similarly, in his book ''Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute for Policy Studies'' Steven Powell writes about his time as an ] at IPS's Washington Office, noting Soviet diplomats who sought to cultivate IPS staff members or showed up at IPS conferences in New York or Washington<ref>{{cite book | last = Powell| first = S.| middle = Steven authorlink = S. Steven powell | year = 1987| title = Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies | publisher = Green Hill Publishers, Inc.| location = ] | page = 329}}</ref> and his "strange encounters with communist East Bloc diplomats who frequented the Institute of Policy Studies"<ref>{{cite book | last = Powell| first = S.| middle = Steven authorlink = S. Steven powell | year = 1987| title = Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies | publisher = Green Hill Publishers, Inc.| location = ] | page = 329-334}}</ref> In particular, Powell gives an anecdotal example of how a Soviet diplomat (who he claims "visited IPS over a dozen times") "perked up when I talked about the possibility of going into the foreign service or becoming a foreign correspondent."<ref>{{cite book | last = Powell| first = S.| middle = Steven authorlink = S. Steven powell | year = 1987| title = Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies | publisher = Green Hill Publishers, Inc.| location = ] | page = 333}}</ref> Moreover, ex-chairman of the Board of Trustees of IPS Peter Weiss<ref></ref> is married to Cora Rubin Weiss, the daughter of Samuel Rubin who according to Dutch Intelligence "aroused some interest because of his membership of the Communist Party and the underground Comintern in the United States."<ref></ref> Furthermore, the Institute created an 'Organizing Committee for the Fifth Estate' in 1974 as part of its "Center for National Security Studies" which published (and still publishes) the magazine ]. CounterSpy has in turn been the subject of scrutiny by officials and intelligence agencies, who claim that the magazine's "driving force"<ref>Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) (confidential Dutch intelligence report, 1982), p. 7, 8.</ref> was ex-CIA agent and alleged Cuban/KGB agent<ref name = "sword3">Andrew p. 230, referencing {{cite book | ||
| last =Kalugin | | last =Kalugin | ||
| first =Oleg | | first =Oleg |
Revision as of 02:57, 12 April 2010
- not to be confused with the UK-based Policy Studies Institute
Abbreviation | IPS |
---|---|
Formation | 1963 |
Type | policy think tank |
Headquarters | Washington, DC, United States |
Director | John Cavanagh |
Website | www.ips-dc.org |
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is a left-wingthink tank based in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1963 by Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet (two former aides to Kennedy administration advisers), it has been directed by John Cavanagh since 1998. Its work is organized into over a dozen projects, all of which work collaboratively.
History
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The organization was founded in 1963 with a stated mandate to provide "an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in Washington."
The institute was founded in 1963 by two former aides to Kennedy administration advisers: Marcus Raskin, aide to McGeorge Bundy, and Richard Barnet, aide to John J. McCloy. Start-up funding was secured from the Sears heir, Philip Stern, and banker, James Warburg.
IPS' current director is John Cavanagh.
The Institute sponsors an annual awards ceremony to honor the memories of two employees that were murdered in 1976 by operatives of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The Letelier-Moffitt human rights awards are named for Chilean exile Orlando Letelier, a former member of Salvador Allende's cabinet and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who was a junior IPS staffer.
On September 21, 1976, a car bombing killed Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and American Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Letelier and Moffitt were colleagues at the Institute for Policy Studies, where Letelier had become one of the most outspoken critics of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Moffitt was a 25-year-old fundraiser who ran a "Music Carryout" program that made musical instruments accessible to poor communities. A massive FBI investigation traced the crime to the highest levels of Pinochet's regime. The Institute for Policy Studies has continued to host an annual human rights award in the names of Letelier and Moffitt to honor these fallen colleagues while celebrating new heroes of the human rights movement from the United States and elsewhere in the Americas. The award recipients receive the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.
IPS has played key roles in the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s, the women's and environmental movements in the 1970s, the anti-apartheid and anti-intervention movements in the 1980s, and the fair trade and environmental justice movements of the 1990s and 2000s. In its attention to the role of multinational corporations, it was also an early critic of what has come to be called globalization.
The Transnational Institute, an international progressive think tank based in Amsterdam, was originally established as the IPS's international programme, although it is now independent.
In 1986, after six years of the Reagan administration, Sidney Blumenthal claimed that "Ironically, as IPS has declined in Washington influence, its stature has grown in conservative demonology. In the Reagan era, the institute has loomed as a right-wing obsession and received most of its publicity by serving as a target."
Criticism
Harvey Klehr, professor of politics and history at Emory University, in his 1988 book Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today said that IPS "serves as an intellectual nerve center for the radical movement, ranging from nuclear and anti-intervention issues to support for Marxist insurgencies." Joshua Muravchik has also accused the institute of communophilism while Emerson Vermatt has accused the think-tank of "its bitter opposition to the intelligence community, notably the CIA." Furthermore, it has been accused by the FBI as a "think factory" that helps to "train extremists who incite violence in U.S. cities, and whose educational research serves as a cover for intrigue, an political agitation."
Allegations of links to the Soviet Union during the Cold War
According to an FBI memorandum dated May 7, 1970, it identified the institute's co-founder Richard Barnet as a communist that had "known contacts with intelligence agents from Soviet and Soviet bloc countries." and whose speeches were "published by the East Coast Communist newspaper 'Daily World'." Similarly, in his book Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute for Policy Studies Steven Powell writes about his time as an intern at IPS's Washington Office, noting Soviet diplomats who sought to cultivate IPS staff members or showed up at IPS conferences in New York or Washington and his "strange encounters with communist East Bloc diplomats who frequented the Institute of Policy Studies" In particular, Powell gives an anecdotal example of how a Soviet diplomat (who he claims "visited IPS over a dozen times") "perked up when I talked about the possibility of going into the foreign service or becoming a foreign correspondent." Moreover, ex-chairman of the Board of Trustees of IPS Peter Weiss is married to Cora Rubin Weiss, the daughter of Samuel Rubin who according to Dutch Intelligence "aroused some interest because of his membership of the Communist Party and the underground Comintern in the United States." Furthermore, the Institute created an 'Organizing Committee for the Fifth Estate' in 1974 as part of its "Center for National Security Studies" which published (and still publishes) the magazine CounterSpy. CounterSpy has in turn been the subject of scrutiny by officials and intelligence agencies, who claim that the magazine's "driving force" was ex-CIA agent and alleged Cuban/KGB agent Philip Agee and accused by US President George H.W. Bush and others of leading to the murder of the then CIA Station Chief in Greece, Richard S. Welch.
Current list of Fellows, Research Fellows, Senior Scholars and Associate Fellows
Fellows
- Sarah Anderson
- Phyllis Bennis
- John Cavanagh
- Karen Dolan
- Saul Landau
- Marcus Raskin
- Sanho Tree
- Daphne Wysham
Research Fellows
Senior Scholars
- Maude Barlow
- Norman Birnbaum
- Noam Chomsky
- Steve Cobble
- Chuck Collins
- Barbara Ehrenreich
- Paul Epstein
- Richard Falk
- Bill Fletcher
- Andy Levine
- Jerry Mander
- Jack O'Dell
- Vandana Shiva
Associate Fellows
- Carlos Albacete
- Beverly Bell
- Stacie Jonas
- Antonia Juhasz
- Ben Manski
- Paul Paz
- Manuel Perez Rocha
- Sam Pizzigati
- Caleb Rossiter
- Amy Quinn
- Dave Ranney
- Osagyefo Sekou
References
- Blumenthal, Sidney (July 30 1986). "Left-wing thinkers". Transnational Institute. Trasnational Institute. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
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(help) - "Review: Discussion on The Current about minimum wages and executive compensation, January 29, 2007". CBC Radio Canada. June 14, 2007. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
- Vermaat, Emerson (January 12, 2009). "Obama's Preferred Future Spy Chief Leon Panetta Supported Communist-Linked Anti-CIA Think Tank". Family Security Matters. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
- Soley, Lawrence (September/October 1998). "Heritage Clones in the Heartland". Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. FAIR. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
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(help) - Ponte, Lowell (July Thursday, October 14, 2004). "The ABC's of Media Bias". FrontPageMagazine. FrontPageMagazine. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
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(help) - Sidney Blumenthal, Washington Post, 30 July 1986, Left-Wing Thinkers
- Klehr 1988, p. 177
- Muravchik, Joshua (1984). ""Communophilism" and the Institute for Policy Studies". World Affairs. 147 (1).
- Vermaat, Emerson (January 12, 2009). "Obama's Preferred Future Spy Chief Leon Panetta Supported Communist-Linked Anti-CIA Think Tank". Family Security Matters. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
- United States Government, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memorandum to Director, FBI, Bufile 105-185148, from Sac. WFO (100-45302) (P), May 4, 1970, p. 1 ("communist"), p. 2 (Confidential). Author's file on IPS/TNI.
- United States Government, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memorandum to Director, FBI, Bufile 105-185148, from Sac. WFO (100-45302) (P), May 4, 1970, p. 1 ("communist"), p. 2 (Confidential). Author's file on IPS/TNI.
- United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, WFO 100-45302, Title Richard Jackson Barnet, May 13, 1971, p. 1 ("Character: Security Matter – Communist"), p. 3, 4 (Daily World). Author's file on IPS/TNI.
- Powell, S. (1987). Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc. p. 329.
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ignored (help) - Powell, S. (1987). Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc. p. 329-334.
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ignored (help) - Powell, S. (1987). Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc. p. 333.
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ignored (help) - Academic biography at the University of Colorado at Boulder
- Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) (confidential Dutch intelligence report, 1982), p. 7, 8.
- Andrew p. 230, referencing Kalugin, Oleg (1995). Spymaster: The Highest-ranking KGB Officer Ever to Break His Silence. Blake Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-85685-101-X.
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(help) p. 191-192 Andrew states: "The KGB files noted by Mitrokhin describe Agee as an agent of the Cuban DGI and give details of his collaboration with the KGB, but do not formally list him as a KGB or DGI agent. vol. 6, ch. 14, parts 1,2,3; vol. 6, app. 1, part 22." - Andrew, p. 231
- "Once Again, Ex-Agent Philip Agee Eludes CIA's Grasp", Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1997
- "Philip Agee, 72; Agent Who Turned Against CIA". Washington Post. 2008-01-09. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
- Walker, Jesse (July 14, 2005). Agee's Revenge. Reason
- Staff report (January 5, 1976). Kidnaping in Vienna, Murder in Athens. Time
- The Left-Leaning Think Tank by Peter Kovler, from Change (The Magazine of Learning), Vol. 10, No. 5, May 1978
- Richard Barnet, IPS, and early critiques of globalization by Abe DeJamminen, United for Peace of Pierce County
- Klehr, Harvey (1988), Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 9780887388750.
External links
- Institute for Policy Studies website
- The Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards
- 1977 profile on IPS by The Heritage Foundation (critical)