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

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 New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, 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 nation ...

one.

History

The committee was founded by Allen Dulles, 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 i ...

. Early board members included Dwight Eisenhower, 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 cine ...

, 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 Republ ...

and DeWitt Wallace. From 1951 to 1952, Charles Douglas Jackson served as its president. The organization created and oversaw the anti-communist broadcast service

Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...

. 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 West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

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