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

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

foreign policy interest groups. Throughout its four iterations—in the 1950s, the 1970s, the 2000s, and 2019—it has influenced foreign policy since the administration of

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

. Its first iteration disbanded as its leading members joined the Dwight Eisenhower administration, leading for it to be reformed in 1976 to counter the Soviet Union during the cold war. This iteration achieved 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 his landslide victory over ...

. The third iteration was formed by veterans of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

in 2004 in support of the war on terror. The fourth iteration, the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) returned the group to its anti-communist roots with a focus on the threat posed to the United States by the China Communist Party.

Overview

The committee first met in 1950, founded by Tracy Voorhees, to promote the plans proposed in NSC 68 by

Paul Nitze Paul Henry Nitze (January 16, 1907 – October 19, 2004) was an American businessman and government official who served as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Sta ...

and

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

. It lobbied the government directly and sought to influence

public opinion Public opinion, or popular opinion, is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. In the 21st century, public opinion is widely thought to be heavily ...

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 Radio, ...

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 and their advisors. After

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

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

détente ''Détente'' ( , ; for, fr, , relaxation, paren=left, ) is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsucces ...

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 of ...

agreement. Its hawkish conclusions influenced the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

's future reporting on the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

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

History

First CPD (1950s)

On December 12, 1950, James Conant, Tracy Voorhees and

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

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 NSC 68. 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 James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first United States Ambassador to West Germany, U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a ...

(chairman) * Tracy S. Voorhees (Vice Chairman) * Julius Ochs Adler * Raymond B. Allen * Frank Altschul * Dillon Anderson * William Douglas Arant * James Phinney Baxter, III * Laird Bell * Barry Bingham * Harry A. Bullis *

* William L. Clayton * Robert Cutler * R. Ammi Cutter * Mrs. Dwight Davis * E.L. DeGolyer * Harold Willis Dodds * 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. He is best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to ...

* Goldthwaite H. Dorr * David Dubinsky * Leonard K. Firestone * Truman K. Gibson Jr. * Miss Meta Glass * Arthur J. Goldberg *

Samuel Goldwyn Samuel Goldwyn (; born Szmuel Gelbfisz; ; July 1879 (most likely; claimed to be August 27, 1882) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer and pioneer in the American film industry, who produce ...

* 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 journalism, broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broa ...

* John Lord O'Brian * Floyd B. Odlum *

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...

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

* Howard C. Petersen * Daniel A. Poling * Stanley Resor * Samuel Rosenman * 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 November 11, 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, 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 (CIA) from 1946 to 2004, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Se ...

William Casey William Joseph Casey (March 13, 1913 – May 6, 1987) was an American lawyer who was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the ...

, National Security Advisor 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 United States Mission to the United Nations, U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is formally known as the Permanent representative to the U ...

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 lon ...

Secretary of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On March 25, 2025, John Phelan was confirm ...

John Lehman, 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 f ...

, and Assistant Secretary of Defense

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. * 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'' reported that a third incarnation of CPD was being planned, to address the War on Terrorism. This incarnation of the committee was still active as of 2008. The head of the 2004 CPD, PR pro and former Reagan 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., 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. Following the death of John McCain in 2018, Kyl briefly returned to the Senate; his resignatio ...

were identified as the honorary co-chairs.

Fourth CPD (2019)

The fourth iteration of the Committee on the Present Danger was unveiled on March 25, 2019. The revived CPDC was focused on education and advocacy on a perceived existential and ideological threat posed by Communist China to the United States. The relaunched organization was announced with Frank Gaffney, a former White House official under President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

, playing a key role. Its stated aim is to "educate and inform American citizens and policymakers about the existential threats presented from the People's Republic of China under the misrule of the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

". Between 2000 and 2023, there were 224 reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the United States. The CPDC takes the view that there is "no hope of coexistence with China as long as the Communist Party governs the country". In a statement on the launch of the committee, the Population Research Institute stated: "The United States is in a new cold war. The Chinese Communist Party poses the greatest threat to both the United States and the world since the fall of the Soviet Union. Then, as now, the threat of a totalitarian regime with an evil ideology – one that is willing to kill 400 million of its own unborn children – must be stopped."

Members

The Committee on the Present Danger: China lists a variety of members including the former politicians and national security professionals, White House officials, business leaders, and others: * Brian Kennedy, Chairman * Frank Gaffney, Vice chairman * Greg Autry *

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 for the first seven months of president Donald Trump's first ...

* J. Kyle Bass *

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

* William G. Boykin * José Cardenas * Robert Charles * Henry Cooper * Kenneth DeGraffenreid * Paula DeSutter * Nicholas Eftimiades * Sam Faddis * James Fanell * Kevin Freeman * Bob Fu * Richard Fisher * Mark Helprin * Rosemary Gibson * Sasha Gong * Chadwick R. Gore * Lianchao Han * Peter Huessy * Bradley Johnson * Phillip Karber * Steven L. Kwast * Ratko Knezevic * Xiaoxu Sean Lin * Tidal McCoy * Robert Maness * Richard Manning * Rod Martin * Faith McDonnell * Robert McEwen * Thomas McInerney * John Mills * Steven W. Mosher * Reggie Littlejohn * Jay Lucas * Scott Perry * Benedict Peters * Miles Prentice * Suzanne Scholte * Arthur Waldron * Frank Wolf * R. James Woolsey Jr. * Yang Jianli

Criticisms

The CPDC has been criticized as promoting a revival of

Red Scare A Red Scare is a form of moral panic provoked by fear of the rise of left-wing ideologies in a society, especially communism and socialism. Historically, red scares have led to mass political persecution, scapegoating, and the ousting of thos ...

politics in the United States, and for the involvement of Frank Gaffney and activist

. David Skidmore, writing for '' The Diplomat'', described it as the latest instance of "what was once referred to as the 'military-industrial complex'" influencing policy. Charles W. Freeman Jr. at the Watson Institute called the CPDC "a ''

Who's Who A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a reference work consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''Who's Who (UK), Who's Who'', a reference work on contemporary promin ...

'' of contemporary wing-nuts, very few of whom have any expertise at all about China and most of whom represent ideological causes only peripherally connected to it."

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 Neoconservatism