Committee on the Present Danger
The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) is the name used by a succession of American
Overview
The committee first met in 1950, founded by Tracy Voorhees, to promote the plans proposed in NSC 68 by Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson. It lobbied the government directly and sought to influence public opinion through a publicity campaign, notably a weekly radio broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System throughout 1951.[5] This iteration was effectively disbanded after 1952, following the appointment of Voorhees and others to senior positions in the administration.[6]
It was privately revived in March 1976 to try to influence the
History
First CPD (1950s)
On December 12, 1950,
Members of the First CPD
- James B. Conant(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
- Vannevar Bush
- William L. Clayton
- Robert Cutler
- R. Ammi Cutter
- Mrs. Dwight Davis
- E.L. DeGolyer
- Harold Willis Dodds
- Charles Dollard
- William J. Donovan
- Goldthwaite H. Dorr
- David Dubinsky
- Leonard K. Firestone
- Truman K. Gibson Jr.
- Miss Meta Glass
- Arthur J. Goldberg
- Samuel Goldwyn
- W. W. Grant
- Edward S. Greenbaum
- Paul G. Hoffman
- Monte H. Lemann
- William L. Marbury
- Stanley Marcus
- Dr. William C. Menninger
- Frederick A. Middlebush
- James L. Morrill
- Edward R. Murrow
- John Lord O'Brian
- Floyd B. Odlum
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Robert P. Patterson
- 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[ed]" from the 1950s version, and was not a direct successor.[8]
Some of its members lobbied for, and were members of, the 1976 Team B, providing an opposing view to the CIA's Team A.
Thirty-three officials of the Reagan administration were CPD members, including
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)
Members of the 2004 CPD included Vice President for Policy
Fourth CPD (2019)
The fourth CPD was established on March 25, 2019 as the
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."[13]
Members of the Fourth CPD
Source:[14]
- Brian Kennedy, Chairman
- Frank Gaffney, Vice Chairman
- Greg Autry
- Steve Bannon
- J. Kyle Bass
- William Bennett
- William G. Boykin
- José Cardenas
- Robert Charles
- Gordon G. Chang[citation needed]
- 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
- Bob McEwen
- Robert Maness
- Richard Manning
- Rod Martin
- Tidal McCoy
- 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 politics in the United States, and for the involvement of Frank Gaffney and activist Steve Bannon.[10][15] 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.[15]
See also
- Citizens for a Free Kuwait
- Coalition for a Democratic Majority
- Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf
- Committee for the Liberation of Iraq
- Foreign policy interest group
- Institute on Religion and Democracy
- Neoconservatism
References
- OCLC 65562600.
- ISBN 978-0-275-97527-2.
- ^ a b "Steve Bannon helps revive US cold war-era committee to target China". South China Morning Post. March 26, 2019. Retrieved February 4, 2024.
- ^ a b c d Kirchick, James (June 30, 2004). "Cold warriors return for war on terrorism". The Hill. Archived from the original on December 19, 2006.
- ^ ISBN 0896081818.
- S2CID 155072379.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
- ISBN 0080319254.
- ^ Lieberman, Joe and Jon Kyl (July 20, 2004). "The Present Danger". The Washington Post.
- ^ a b Swanson, Ana (July 20, 2019). "A New Red Scare Is Reshaping Washington". The New York Times. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
- ^ Wu, Wendy (March 26, 2019). "Cold War is back: Bannon helps revive U.S. committee to target 'aggressive totalitarian foe' China". Politico. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
- ^ Rogin, Josh (April 10, 2019). "China hawks call on America to fight a new Cold War". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
- ^ "Distinguished Team Launches the Committee on the Present Danger: China". PRI. March 28, 2019. Retrieved January 27, 2024.
- ^ "Members". Committee on the Present Danger. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
- ^ a b Skidmore, David (July 23, 2019). "The US Scare Campaign Against China: The political calculations behind exaggerating the 'present danger' – from the Cold War to today". The Diplomat. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
Further reading
- Boies, John, and Nelson A. Pichardo (1993–1994). "The Committee on the Present Danger: A Case for the Importance of Elite Social Movement Organizations to Theories of Social Movements and the State". Berkeley Journal of Sociology 38: 57-87. JSTOR 41035466.
- Singh, Robert. "Neoconservatism in the Age of Obama", in Inderjeet Parmar, ed., Obama and the World (Routledge, 2014). pp. 51–62.
- Vaïsse, Justin (2010). "Chapter 5: Nuclear Alarm: The Committee on the Present Danger". Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement. Belknap. ISBN 978-0-674-06070-8.
- Walker, Martin (1995). The Cold War: A History. Chapter 11: "The Death of Détente and the Change of the Western System"; and Chapter 12: "The New Cold War". Macmillan. ISBN 0-8050-3454-4.