In a preemptive salvo in the guilt-by-association game, Democratic strategist Paul Begala, appearing on Meet the Press, raised an obscure detail from John McCain's past - a far right-wing organization on whose board the Senator once served.
"John McCain sat on the board of... the U.S. Council for World Freedom," said Begala, "The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League - the parent organization - which ADL said 'has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.'"
McCain's involvement in the U.S. Council for World Freedom has, it appears, never been raised in this campaign before Begala's mentioning. It may be because the organization was inherently secretive, designed to pour resources into military confrontation with communist regimes across the globe.
But McCain certainly was a member. The Arizona Republican reportedly sat on the group's board as early as 1981. A letter from the organization in July 1986 still lists him as a member of the Advisory Board. In the five years in between, the organization pursued policies (and employed individuals) that put it on the far right of contemporary foreign policy. It pursued a worldview that dictated military confrontation with unfriendly regimes. It often conducted its affairs in a clandestine matter that circumvented the dictum of the United States Congress. And while it has been twenty years since McCain served with USCWF, the organization's activities can provide a interesting insight into the type of foreign policy the Senator still holds today.
"I didn't know that [McCain had] served on the board," said Shannon O'Neil, Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It is a little bit surprising to me. But all of those organizations did come from the Republican side mostly. Often the people were tied to the military and they saw the world in black and white terms... My impression is [McCain] still sees the world in back and white."
The U.S. Council of World Freedom was founded in 1981 as an offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League. The group was, from the onset, saddled with the reputation of its mother group. The WACL had ties to ultra-right figures and Latin American death squads. Roger Pearson, the chairman of the WACL, was expelled from the group in 1980 under allegations that he was a member of a neo-Nazi organization.
The USCWF claimed to be cleansed of these elements. The group's director, retired Major General John Singlaub -- who had once been expelled from his post as U.S. Chief of Staff of American forces in South Korea after a public confrontation with President Jimmy Carter -- said he had purged some of the more "kooky" members, including a Mexican chapter that "blamed everything on the Jews," and "even accused Pope John Paul of being a Jew."
And, indeed, the USCWF, during the early 1980s was granted a sense of political legitimacy when President Ronald Reagan addressed the group in September 1984.
"The question we face is whether the moral strength of those ready to make sacrifices for their faith and principles is a greater force than the corruption of human energies that sustains the communists," said the President. "The signs of resurgent moral strength among freedom-loving peoples are all around us."
During this time the WACL and, by extension, the U.S. Council of World Freedom, became a vehicle for the Reagan administration to carry out its Central America policy. In a 60 Minutes segment aired years later Singlaub was described as the President's "secret weapon to sidestep a Congress that will not permit him to act in the areas where he believes that our security interests are at stake." He did not contest the description.
As documented by Russ Bellant's "Old Nazis the New Right and the Republican Party" Singlaub and the WACL helped launched private aid campaigns to numerous Latin American paramilitary organizations including those in Nicaragua. Since U.S. government policy at that time prohibited funding such outfits, the U.S. World Council of Freedom raised it from private donors. A wealthy Texan named Ellen Garwood claimed that she gave $65,000 for the purchase of a helicopter (to be named "Lady Ellen"). Joe Coors, the conservative Beer baron, was also reportedly a backer. Time Magazine reported that the Christian Broadcasting Network was another funder. One group that helped coordinate donations was the Washington Times, the paper owned by the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
Singlaub, in a letter to the New York Times, disputed the notion that any of this money went for armed combat.
"Our contributions have been only for nonlethal supplies," he wrote in 1985, "medical equipment, and the like. The helicopter you referred to (given by a great lady, Ellen Garwood) is not a combat aircraft. It is to be used for medical evacuation, and it is the same type that is used by many American cities for emergency purposes."
But a year later, in that 60 Minutes interview, he acknowledged that he and Col. Oliver North had worked together to establish the Nicaraguan contra supply network.
As late as that year, it seems, McCain was still serving on the USCWL board. In a letter dated July 17, 1986, the organization's communications firm sent a letter regarding Singlaub's appearance at a conference "of nearly 40 countries... taking part in an annual observance to commemorate efforts on behalf of freedom throughout the world." McCain's name is listed under the advisory board section. Other members that were associated with the group included: Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham, the godfather of the Strategic Defense Initiative; John Carbaugh, chief aide to Senator Jesse Helm; and Stefan Possony, a conservative foreign policy thinker who bemoaned the growth of communism on college campuses. Several additional members were called for comment. No returned the request.
There is no reporting to suggest that McCain was directly involved in any of the USCWF's operational decisions. Begala, in his appearance on Meet The Press, actually took time to exonerate the Senator from any charge that he is associated with the organization's early fringe membership. "Now, that's not John McCain," he said, "I don't think he is that."
But McCain's association with a group that reportedly circumvented Congressional law, financed right-wing military institutions, and engaged in sometimes brutal anti-communist tactics, could be telling, if not influential, for some voters. At the very least his time on the board of the U.S. Council of World Freedom provides a window of sorts into the foreign policy vision that he held back in the 1980s and one that he still seemingly holds today.
"Remember this happened during a time when you were either with us or against us," said Council on Foreign Relation's O'Neil. "Somewhat like the mindset that we have currently."