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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