Chester, Eric Thomas. Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee, and the CIA. Armonk NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1995. 265 pages.

The Cold War period in American history was characterized by a seamless cooperation among international charities, quasi-governmental organizations, major foundations, funding conduits, and the CIA. Any semblance of private- sector independence was more calculated than real -- a veil that is stripped away by following the careers, connections, and correspondence of the key players who show up on the interlocking boards of directors. This book singles out the International Rescue Committee, and to a lesser extent the Ford Foundation. Its impressive original-source research makes a mockery of any historian who would pretend that these organizations can be considered separately from the CIA's influence and agenda, particularly during the Cold War period.

Eric Thomas Chester has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and has been a civil rights worker, a member of Students for a Democratic Society, a cab driver, union organizer, substitute teacher, and assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts. He remains an activist in the trade union solidarity movement and the Socialist party. With a record like this Chester had nothing to lose, so he charged ahead and wrote the truth.
ISBN 1-56324-551-5

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