The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) is the name used by a succession of American

neoconservative Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and cou ...

and

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and th ...

foreign policy interest group __NOTOC__ A foreign policy interest group, according to Thomas Ambrosio, is a domestic advocacy group which seeks to directly or indirectly influence their government's foreign policy.Ambrosio, Thomas. 2002. "Ethnic identity groups and U.S. for ...

s. Throughout its four iterations—in the 1950s, the 1970s, the 2000s, and 2019, it has tried to influence all the presidential administrations since

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

, achieving notable success during the

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...

Overview

The committee first met in 1950, founded by

Tracy Voorhees Tracy Stebbins Voorhees (June 30, 1890 – September 25, 1974) served as Under Secretary of the United States Army from August 1949 to April 1950. He held numerous positions within the U.S. Government as a civilian. A practicing attorney, Voorhee ...

, to promote the plans proposed in

NSC 68 United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, better known as NSC68, was a 66-page top secret National Security Council (NSC) policy paper drafted by the Department of State and Department of Defense and presented to President Harr ...

Paul Nitze Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 – October 19, 2004) was an American politician who served as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. He is best k ...

and

Dean Acheson Dean Gooderham Acheson (pronounced ; April 11, 1893October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As the 51st U.S. Secretary of State, he set the foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration from 1949 to 1953. He was also Truma ...

. It lobbied the government directly and sought to influence

public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...

through a publicity campaign, notably a weekly radio broadcast on the

Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. rad ...

throughout 1951. This iteration was effectively disbanded after 1952, following the appointment of Voorhees and others to senior positions in the administration. It was privately revived in March 1976 to try to influence the

presidential candidates President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

and their advisors. After

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, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 19 ...

won the election, CPD went public again and spent the next four years lobbying, particularly against

détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce ...

and the

SALT II The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds o ...

agreement. Its

hawkish In politics, a war hawk, or simply hawk, is someone who favors war or continuing to escalate an existing conflict as opposed to other solutions. War hawks are the opposite of doves. The terms are derived by analogy with the birds of the same nam ...

conclusions influenced 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, ...

's future reporting on 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 national ...

threat. This iteration of the CPD provided 33 officials to the Ronald Reagan administration, plus Reagan himself.

History

First CPD (1950s)

On 12 December 1950, James Conant,

and

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartim ...

announced the creation of the committee on the Present Danger. The group was formed in order to support the Truman Administration's remilitarization plans contained within

. The 'present danger' to which the group's title referred was "the aggressive designs of the Soviet Union", the CPD announced.

Members of the First CPD

* James B. Conant (Chairman) * Tracy S. Voorhees (Vice Chairman) *

Julius Ochs Adler Julius Ochs Adler (December 3, 1892 – October 3, 1955) was an American publisher, journalist, and highly decorated United States Army officer with the rank of major general. He distinguished himself during World War I as Major and battalion com ...

* Raymond B. Allen * Frank Altschul *

Dillon Anderson Dillon Anderson (July 14, 1906 – January 29, 1974) was an official in the federal government of the United States during the Eisenhower administration (1953–61). He served as the 2nd National Security Advisor from April 2, 1955, to September ...

* William Douglas Arant * James Phinney Baxter, III * Laird Bell * Barry Bingham * Harry A. Bullis *

* William L. Clayton *

Robert Cutler Robert Cutler (June 12, 1895 – May 8, 1974) was an American government official who was the first person appointed as the president's National Security Advisor. He served US President Dwight Eisenhower in that role between 1953 and 1955 and f ...

* R. Ammi Cutter * Mrs. Dwight Davis * E.L. DeGolyer *

Harold Willis Dodds Harold Willis Dodds (June 28, 1889 – October 25, 1980) was the fifteenth president of Princeton University from 1933 to 1957. Early life and education Dodds was born on June 28, 1889, in Utica, Pennsylvania, the son of a professor of Bible ...

* Charles Dollard *

William J. Donovan William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Bu ...

* Goldthwaite H. Dorr *

David Dubinsky David Dubinsky (; born David Isaac Dobnievski; February 22, 1892 – September 17, 1982) was a Belarusian-born American labor leader and politician. He served as president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) between 1932 ...

* Leonard K. Firestone * Truman K. Gibson Jr. * Miss Meta Glass * Arthur J. Goldberg *

Samuel Goldwyn Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor a ...

* W. W. Grant * Edward S. Greenbaum * Paul G. Hoffman * Monte H. Lemann * William L. Marbury *

Stanley Marcus Harold Stanley Marcus"Personal" (column), ''The Dallas Morning News'', November 9, 1905, page 5. (April 20, 1905 – January 22, 2002) was president (1950–1972) and later chairman of the board (1972–1976) of the luxury retailer Neima ...

* Dr. William C. Menninger * Frederick A. Middlebush * James L. Morrill *

Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe fo ...

* John Lord O'Brian * Floyd B. Odlum * J. Robert Oppenheimer *

Robert P. Patterson Robert Porter Patterson Sr. (February 12, 1891 – January 22, 1952) was an American judge who served as Under Secretary of War under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.S. Secretary of War under President Harry S. Truman. He was a US circu ...

Howard C. Petersen Howard Charles Petersen (May 7, 1910 – December 28, 1995) was an American government official and banker. He was the United States Assistant Secretary of War from 1945 to 1947. Education and early career Petersen was born in East Chicago, India ...

* Daniel A. Poling * Stanley Resor *

Samuel Rosenman Samuel Irving Rosenman (February 13, 1896 – June 24, 1973) was an American lawyer, judge, Democratic Party activist and presidential speechwriter. He coined the term "New Deal", and helped articulate liberal policies during the heyday of the N ...

* Theodore W. Schultz * Robert E. Sherwood * Edgar W. Smith * Robert G. Sproul * Robert L. Stearns * Edmund A. Walsh, S.J. * W. W. Waymack * Henry M. Wriston * J. D. Zellerbach

Second CPD (1970s)

On 11 November 1976, the second iteration was announced. The name of this version of the committee was "borrow d from the 1950s version, and was not a direct successor. Some of its members lobbied for, and were members of, the 1976

Team B Team B was a competitive analysis exercise commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to analyze threats the Soviet Union posed to the security of the United States. It was created, in part, due to a 1974 publication by Albert Wohlstett ...

, providing an opposing view to the

's ''Team A''. Thirty-three officials of the Reagan administration were CPD members, including

Director of Central Intelligence The director of central intelligence (DCI) was the head of the American Central Intelligence Agency from 1946 to 2005, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Security ...

William Casey,

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 secu ...

Richard V. Allen,

United States Ambassador to the United Nations The United States ambassador to the United Nations is the leader of the U.S. delegation, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is formally known as the permanent representative of the United States of America to the United Nation ...

Jeane Kirkpatrick Jeane Duane Kirkpatrick (née Jordan; November 19, 1926December 7, 2006) was an American diplomat and political scientist who played a major role in the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration. An ardent anticommunist, she was a l ...

Secretary of the Navy The secretary of the Navy (or SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department (component organization) within the United States Department of Defense. By law, the se ...

John Lehman John Francis Lehman Jr. (born September 14, 1942) is an American private equity investor and writer who served as Secretary of the Navy (1981–1987) in the Ronald Reagan administration where he promoted the creation of a 600-ship Navy. From 2 ...

, Secretary of State

George Shultz George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fo ...

, and

Assistant Secretary of Defense Assistant Secretary of Defense is a title used for many high-level executive positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense within the U.S. Department of Defense. The Assistant Secretary of Defense title is junior to Under Secretary of Defen ...

Richard Perle Richard Norman Perle (born September 16, 1941) is an American political advisor who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to ...

. Reagan himself was a member in 1979.

Founding members of the second CPD

* Achilles, Theodore C. * Allen, Richard V. * Allison, John M. * Anderson, Eugenie * Beam, Jacob D. * Bellow, Saul * Bendetsen, Karl R. * Burgess, W. Randolph * Cabot, John M. * Casey, William J, * Chaikin, Sol C. * Cline, Ray S. * Colby, William E. * Connally, John B. * Connor, John T. * Darden, Colgate W. Jr. * Dean, Arthur H. * Dillon, C. Douglas * Dogole, S. Harrison * Dominick, Peter H. * Dowling, Walter * DuBrow, Evelyn * Farrell, James T. * Fellman, David * Fowler, Henry H. * Frelinghuysen, Peter H. B. * Glazer, Nathan * Goodpaster, Andrew J. * Grace, J. Peter * Gray, Gordon * Handlin, Oscar * Hauser, Rita E. *

Hurewitz, J. C. Jacob Coleman Hurewitz (November 11, 1914 – May 16, 2008) was an American political scientist Hurewitz graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1936, then did his graduate work at Columbia, making what was then an unusual deci ...

* Johnson, Chalmers * Jordan, David C. * Kampelman, Max M. * Kemp, Geoffrey * Keyserling, Leon H. * Kirkland, Lane * Kirkpatrick, Jeanne J. * Kohler Foy D. * Krogh, Peter * Lefever, Ernest W. * Lemnitzer, Lyman L. * Libby, W. F. * Lipset, Seymour Martin * Lovestone, Jay * Luce, Clare Boothe * Martin, William McChesney Jr. * McCabe, Edward A. * McGhee, George C. * McNair, Robert E. * Morse, Joshua M. * Muller, Steven * Mulliken, Robert S. * Myerson, Bess * Nitze, Paul H. * Olmsted, George * Packard, David * Podhoretz, Midge Dector * Podhoretz, Norman * Ramey, Estelle R. * Ramsey, Paul * Ridgway, Matthew B. * Rostow, Eugene V. * Rusk, Dean * Rustin, Bayard * Saltzman, Charles E. * Scaife, Richard M. * Schifter, Richard * Seabury, Paul * Shanker, Albert * Tanham, George K. * Taylor, Maxwell D. * Teller, Edward * Tyroler, Charles, II. * Van Cleave, William R. * Walker, Charls E. * Wigner, Eugene P. * Wilcox, Francis O. * Wolfe, Bertram D. * Zumwalt, Elmo R.

Third CPD (2004)

In June 2004, ''

The Hill ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

'' reported that a third incarnation of CPD was being planned, to address the

War on Terrorism The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

. This incarnation of the committee was still active as of 2008. The head of the 2004 CPD, PR pro and former

Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

adviser Peter D. Hannaford, explained, "we saw a parallel" between the Soviet threat and the threat from terrorism. The message that CPD will convey through lobbying, media work and conferences is that the war on terror needs to be won, he said. Members of the 2004 CPD included Vice President for Policy Larry Haas, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, former CIA director

R. James Woolsey Jr. Robert James Woolsey Jr. (born September 21, 1941) is an American political appointee who has served in various senior positions. He headed the Central Intelligence Agency as Director of Central Intelligence from February 5, 1993, until January 1 ...

, former National Security Advisor to President Reagan, Robert C. McFarlane, and Reagan administration official and 1976 Committee founder Max Kampelman. At the July 20, 2004 launching of the 2004 CPD, Lieberman and Senator

Jon Kyl Jon Llewellyn Kyl ( ; born April 25, 1942) is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States Senator for Arizona from 1995 to 2013 and again in 2018. A Republican, he held both of Arizona's Senate seats at different times, ...

were identified as the honorary co-chairs.

Fourth CPD (2019)

The fourth CPD was established on March 25, 2019, branding itself "Committee on the Present Danger: China" (CPDC). Members include both China-focused specialists and others without specific experience related to the country, and are predominantly conservative.

Members of the Fourth CPD

* Brian Kennedy, Chairman *

Frank Gaffney Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (born April 5, 1953) is an American anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist and the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked for the federal government in multiple posts, including ...

, Vice Chairman *

Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump during the ...

William Bennett William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office o ...

* William G. Boykin * Gordon G. Chang * Nicholas Eftimiades * Kevin Freeman * Bob Fu * Mark Helprin *

Steven L. Kwast Steven Lloyd Kwast is a retired United States Air Force lieutenant general. He last served as commander of Air Education and Training Command, Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas. In that role, he was responsible for the recruiting, trainin ...

* Tidal McCoy *

Bob McEwen Robert D. McEwen (born January 12, 1950) is an American lobbyist and former Republican Party politician. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from southern Ohio's Sixth District, from January 3, 1981 to January 3, 199 ...

* Thomas McInerney * Steven W. Mosher * Scott Perry * Benedict Peters * Miles Prentice *

Suzanne Scholte Suzanne Scholte (born 1959, Connecticut) is an American human rights activist and congressional candidate. She is the president of the Defense Forum Foundation. She is also the Vice Co-Chair of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and ...

* Arthur Waldron * Frank Wolf *

* Yang Jianli

Criticisms

The fourth iteration of CPD, focused on China, has been criticized as promoting a revival of

Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which a ...

politics in the United States, and for its ties to conspiracy theorist

and conservative activist

. David Skidmore, writing for ''

The Diplomat ''The Diplomat'' is an international online news magazine covering politics, society, and culture in the Indo-Pacific region. It is based in Washington, D.C. It was originally an Australian bi-monthly print magazine, founded by Minh Bui Jones ...

'', saw it as another instance of "adolescent hysteria" in US diplomacy, as another of the "fevered crusades hichhave produced some of the costliest mistakes in American foreign policy".

References

External links

Committee on the Present Danger: China

CPD Home page (Third CPD)

The Committee on the Present Danger Papers at the Hoover Institution
{{Authority control Political and economic think tanks in the United States Foreign policy and strategy think tanks in the United States United States political action committees Anti-communist organizations in the United States