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Coalition for
a Democratic Majority
Acronym/Code: CDM
Updated: 9/89
Categories:
Political
Background:
The CDM was formed in 1972 by the late Sen Henry Jackson (D-WA) who headed the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Jackson and his coalition favored a strong military and promoted the concept
of "peace through strength."(4) The CDM has its roots in the intellectual movement of neoconservatism--intellectual and pragmatic, with an emphasis on democracy, anticommunism, and globalism. (3,4)) By the mid-1970s, the Vietnam war had cooled the ardor of the American public for the policy of interventionism, a philosophy of great importance to the CDM. The election of President Jimmy Carter pushed the "hardliners" into action and, in 1976, the CDM helped to found the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a lobby group for containment militarism. The CPD developed and implemented a new "Soviet Threat" campaign. (4) The broader goal of CDM, however, was to reinstate containment militarism as the central theme of U.S. foreign policy. (4)
The CDM argued that the U.S. must have a
strong national defense and a foreign policy of active resistance to what
it calls "totalitarianism and repression." Further it urges strong
support for "foreign allies who share America's democratic values--whether
it is the government of Israel in the Middle East or the government of El
Salvador's Jose Napoleon Duarte in Central America."(10)
Funding:
The funding for the CDM comes from contributions
from individuals and corporations. (11)
Activities:
It is difficult to define the activities
of this group as it works within the Democratic Party and within Congress.
It develops and promotes policies reflecting its goals. CDM works with with
the Committee on the Present Danger, The Coalition for Peace Through Strength
and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), among others. All work on the
premise that communism, personified by the Soviet Union, is the greatest evil
in the world, and all feel that containment militarism is the best way to
stop the communist drive to control the world. (3,4) The AEI gives the concepts
academic legitimacy, CDM works the Congress and the CPD presents the issues
to the public. Members of the coalition helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency
in 1980 and with his victory became "Reagan democrats."(4)
Team B, a group authorized in 1976 by President
Ford and organized by then-CIA director George Bush, had its headquarters
in the CDM offices. Team B was headed by Sovietologist Richard Pipes and was
composed of primarily hard-line anticommunists. The rejuvenated Committee
on the Present Danger grew out of Team B. (3,4)
The same year, CDM also provided office space
for an ad hoc committee, the Emergency Coalition Against Unilateral Disarmament
a lobbying group formed initially to stop the appointment of Paul Warnke as
Secretary of Defense. The coalition was run by retired Lt. General Daniel
Graham. Graham was also a member of Team B. The Emergency Coalition brought
together hard-line neoconservatives like Rostow, Nitze and Jackson with the
New Right represented by Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus, James
Roberts of the American Conservative Union, Charles R. Black of the National
Conservative Political Action Committee and campaign director for the Republican
National Committee, Paul Weyrich of the Committee for the Survival of a Free
Congress and representatives from Young Americans For Freedom, Young Republican
National Federation, and the American Security Council. (4) The Emergency
Coalition produced the "Pipes Report," the founding document behind
the second incarnation of the Committee
on the Present Danger. (4) The CDM worked behind the scenes to prevent Carter
from appointing Paul Warnke as Secretary of Defense in 1976. An anonymous
four-page memo was circulated which accused Warnke of advocating unilateral
abandonment by the U.S. of every weapons system subject to negotiation at
the SALT talks. After Harold Brown had been selected by President Carter,
it came out that the memo was written by Penn Kemble, founder and then co-chair
of CDM, and Josh Muravchik. Muravchik is the son of CDM member Emanuel Muravchik.
(4)
At a 1986 Democratic Policy Commission meeting
in Washington members of CDM continued to advocate the policy that the U.S. should "assist those abroad who are struggling against tyranny of
the extreme right or the extreme left." They identified the Soviet Union
as "the gravest threat to freedom, peace and progress in the world."(6)
While CDM says it opposes tyranny by the extreme right, it accepts Jeane Kirkpatrick's
distinction between the extremists of the right and the left. That is,"rightest
authoritarian regimes can be transformed peacefully into democracies, but
totalitaran Marxist ones cannot. They can be changed only by 'aiding armed
opponents' of communism. In the 'final analysis' these enemies of freedom
can only be deterred from greater aggression ... by the military capacities
of the United States."(7)
The May 1989 issue of The Defense Democrat,
the CDM monthly, attacked the Bush administration's lack of policy with regard
to the Soviet Union. It said that the National Strategy Review-12 (NSR-12)--established
by Bush to review and advise upon U.S. policies and the changes occurring
in the Soviet Union and develop an appropriate policy--could no longer be
considered as just using caution, but is "beginning to look more like
confusion." The article went on to note that Defense Secretary Richard
Cheney announced support for a $10 billion cut in defense spending for 1990,
and queried whether the Bush administration had quietly put into place a plan
to shift from "guns to butter." It warned that it may soon "be
open season on defense spending."(8)
In the same issue, Admiral William J. Crowe,
Jr. wrote that the U.S. defenses are weak, and that defense spending had
"moved from the peak to the valley." Crowe wrote that the U.S.
had no tangible evidence of change within the Soviet Union and, therefore,
could not afford any reductions in defense spending. (8)
A sidebar in The Defense Democrat promotes
the further development of a new hypervelocity missile (HVM) which will cost
$20,000 to $35,000 per missile. (8)
Government Connections:
The following members of the CDM board, are
members of the Committee on the Present Danger and served in the Reagan administration:
Max M. Kampelman, Chairman of the U.S. Delegation to Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe; Michael Novak, U.S. Representative on the Human
Rights Commission of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations;
Richard Pipes, National Security Council; Eugene V. Rostow, director of the
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; and Paul Seabury, member of the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. (4)
Representatives Les Aspin, Norm Dicks, Dante
Fascell and Sen. Charles S. Robb serve on the CDM Task Force on Foreign Policy
and Defense. (8)
Matthew Nimitz, former Undersecretary of State,
served on the 1984 democratic platform drafting task force. (10)
Roy Godson served as a consultant to the United
States Information Agency (USIA) in the early 1980s. (17) He also served as
a consultant to the National Security Council and as an organizer of the 1985
International Youth Conference held in Jamaica. (16)
Sen. Lloyd Bentsen was Michael Dukakis's vice
presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket in the 1988 campaign. Euge
ne V. Rostow is a hard line anti-Soviet policymaker. He was director of the
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Reagan administration. (4)
Private Connections:
Penn Kemble, chair of the executive committee,
was the cofounder and president of Friends of the Democratic Center in Central
America (PRODEMCA). (30) PRODEMCA was founded to support incipient democratic
processes in Central America. (31) It has a controversial history because
of its advocacy of the Nicaraguan contras and involvement in the IranContra
affair. PRODEMCA received $88,000 from Spitz Channell, head of the National
Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, a major actor in Lt. Col. Oliver
North's private aid network for the contras. (12,13) PRODEMCA's board included
well known neoconservatives such as Jeane Kirkpatrick and former Treasury
Secretary William Simon. (13) PRODEMCA terminated its independent operation
and merged with Freedom House in late 1988. (31) Kemble is the national vice
chairman of the Social Democrats, USA, (SD/USA) a neoconservative group that
tries to affect political and social change by working with labor groups.
(15) Kemble also serves on the board of directors of the League for Industrial
Democracy, a group closely associated with SD/USA. (18)
Eugene V. Rostow was a major figure in policy
development for the orginal Committee on the Present Danger and on CPD II.
(4) He is on the national council of the League for Industrial Democracy.
(18) Rostow is the acting chair, chairman of the executive committee and treasurer
of the CPD. (2,23)
Ben Wattenberg, chairman of CDM, in 1988 was
a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank
that develops and provides supporting documents for the policies of groups
like the CDM and the Committee on the Present Danger. (4,14) Wattenberg is
also on the 1989 board of directors of the League for Industrial Democracy,
a conservative group working closely with the SD/USA, that sees labor as the
cutting edge for social and political change. (15,19) He is on the 1989 board
of trustees of Freedom House, another neoconservative organization that studies
countries and governments around the globe to determine whether or not they
qualify as "democratic."(19)
Charles Krauthammer of the New Republic is
a major proponent of the CDM philosophy that the U.S. has a moral obligation
to support democratic movements around the globe, but then goes on to name
groups such as the Nicaraguan contras as examples of "democratic movements."(3) Josh Muravchik is a nephew of Midge Decter who is the executive
director of the Committee for theFree World. Decter is married to Norman Podhoretz,
editor of Commentary. (4)
Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham (ret. ) is the founder
and chair of High Frontier, a pro-SDI group, and vice chair of the U.S. Council
for World Freedom, the U.S. branch of the World AntiCommunist League. (4,5)
Roy Godson, a prominent member of CDM, directs
Georgetown University's International Labor Program and runs the Washington
offices of the National Strategy Information Center, a lobbying organization
dedicated to the preservation of containment militarism. (4) Godson is on
the board of directors of the League for Industrial Democracy. (15) Seymour
Lipset was a founder of the Committee on the Present Danger. (4) He is currently
on the board of directors of the League for Industrial Democracy. (18) Lipset
received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1984 and
1987 for research and promotion of his four volume study, Democracy in Developing
Countries. NED is a private organization created to channel U.S. Information
Agency funds from Congress to private organizations. (22)
Prominent CDM members Irving Kristol, Jeane
Kirkpatrick, and Michael Novak have been resident scholars at the conservative
think tank, American Enterprise Institute (AEI); Kristol has served on the
board of directors. AEI has also recuited CDM members S. M. Lipset, Richard
Scammon, Ben Wattenberg, Peter Berger, and Nathan Glazer for various projects
at the institute. Wattenberg edits AEI's journal, Public Opinion. (4)
Sol Chaikin who served on the 1984 democratic
platformdrafting task force was president of the International Ladies' Garment
Workers' Union. Bayard Rustin, former president of the A. Philip Randolph
Institute, served on the same committee along with Harriet Zimmerman of the
United Jewish Appeal. (10) Chaikin is vice president of the League for Industrial
Democracy, is on the board of trustees of Freedom House and the national advisory
council of SD/USA. (18,20,21)
John Joyce serves on the board of the National
Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). (29) NDI was created
to receive funds from the National Endowment for Democracy for overseas democracy-building
projects. (22) Joyce is on the boards of the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI),
the Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI), the American Institute for
Free Labor Development (AIFLD), and the African-American Labor Center (AALC)--the
anticommunist, democracy-building affiliates of the AFL-CIO. (24,25,26) He
also served on the board of the League for Industrial Democracy. (18)
Albert Shanker serves on the boards of Freedom
House, SD/USA, FTUI and AALC, and is on the board of trustees of AIFLD. (20,21,24,25)
In 1988, Shanker was vice president of the AFL-CIO, and was on the board of
directors of NED. (28,27) He is treasurer of the League for Industrial Democracy.
(18) Shanker was a founder of the Committee on the Present Danger, and is
honorary chairperson of the Bayard Rustin Fund. (4,9)
Jay Mazur is on the boards of the AFL-CIO
affiliates--FTUI, AIFLD, AALC, and AAFLI. (24,25,26) He is on the 1989 board
of the League for Industrial Democracy. (18) Mazur has also been on the board
of the National Committee for Labor Israel-Histadrut, the main labor federation
in Israel. Histadrut receives AFL-CIO funding and is supportive of its anticommunist
policies. (22)
Norman Hill is on the boards of Freedom House,
SD/USA, and the League for Industrial Democracy. (18,21,20) He also serves
as the vice pres of the Bayard Rustin Fund. (9)
Misc:
In an article in the American Freedom Journal
of Jan 1989, Ben Wattenberg, chair of the CDM, suggested that the world of
the 1990s is likely to be characterized by a more open Soviet Union and a
united Europe. He wrote, "Our goal in the global game is not to conquer
the world, only to influence it so that it is hospitable to our values."
In the same article, he named the global language as "American,"
and called upon President-elect Bush to market the "American way"
as a dominant theme of the 21st century. (14)
Comments:
Current Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has
complicated things for the CDM. His moves towards disarmament and military
disengagement make it difficult for the CDM to maintain the image of the "Soviet
threat."(3)
It appears that the direction of the policy
marketed by CDM is shifting from containment militarism to Low Intensity Conflict
(LIC). LIC requires, in part, constant pressure on all countries and groups
seen as "communist," and a build up of high-tech conventional weaponry.
This change is likely to be coupled with a major push for SDI which will be
portrayed as necessary because the U.S. is no longer building a huge nuclear
defense network. (3,4) Despite these changes, the vision or policy promoted
by the CDM remains true to the tenets of neoconservatism. This fact is shown
in a letter from Eugene V. Rostow to The Defense Democrat in May 1989. He
wrote,"It is time to liberate ourselves from the illusion that arms
control agreements produce peace by magic, and direct our attention to the
real cause of the cold war, the Soviet policy of expansion achieved by the
aggressive use of force."(8)
U.S. Address: 1001 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite
707, Washington, DC 20036.
Principals:
Advisory Board of Elected Officials for the
Coalition for a Democratic Majority are: Sen. Henry M. Jackson (1912-1983),
Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX), Sen. David L. Boren (DOK), Sen. James Exon (D-NE),
Sen. Wyche Fowler, Jr. (D-GA), Sen. Howell Heflin (D-AL), Sen. Ernest Hollings
(D-SC), Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-LA), Sen. Daniel
Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), Sen. Charles S. Robb (DVA),
Rep. Les Aspin (D-WI), Rep. Charles Bennett (D-FL), Rep. Norman Dicks (D-WA),
Rep. Thomas S. Foley (D-WA), Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-OK), Rep. Bill Richardson
(D-NM), Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-NY), Rep. Larry Smith (D-FL), Rep. Jim Wright
(until his resignation--D-TX), and Hubert H. Humphrey III, Atty Gen. of MN.
(2)
Officers are: Ben J. Wattenberg, chairman;
Peter R. Rosenblatt, president; Penn Kemble, chairman of the executive committee;
and Maria H. Thomas, secretary-treasurer. (2)
Ben Wattenberg and Irving Kristol were selected
to co-chair the coalition. (3)
Board of Directors are: Morris J. Amitay,
Judy Bardacke, Philip Baskin, Walter Beach, Richard W. Boling, Sol C. Chaikin,
S. Harrison Dogole, Evelyn Dubrow, Angier Biddle Duke, Ervis S. Duggan, Valerie
Earle, Robin Farkas, Richard Fellman, John Frank, Norman Gelman, Nathan Glazer,
Roy Godson, Nathan Golden, Zmina Goodman, Judith Hernstadt, Norman Hill, Samuel
P. Huntington, David M. Ifshin, Max M. Kampelman, Ginger Lew, Seymour M. Lipset,
Jerome B. Mack, Stephen Mann, Jay Mazur, Philip Merrill, Bruce Miller, Joshua
Muravchik, Michael Novak, Clara Penniman, Richard Pipes, Richardson Pryor,
Lucian Pye, Molly Raiser, John P. Roche, Nina Rosenwald, Eugene V. Rostow,
Paul Seabury, Albert Shanker, Walter Shorerutin, Mark A. Siegel, Steven Simmons,
Walter B. Slocombe, Allen Weinstein, Raymond E. Wolfinger, R. James Woosey
and Harriet M. Zimmerman. (2)
The Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM)
Task Force on Foreign Policy and Defense is headed by Rep. Dave McCurdy (DOK),
House Armed Services Comt--chair; R. James Woolsey, atty and former Undersecretary
of the Navy--vice chair. Other members are: Morris Amitay, atty and former
exec dir of the American Israel Public Affairs Comt; Rep. Les Aspin (D-WI),
chair of the House Armed Services Comt; Henry Cisneros, mayor of San Antonio,
TX; Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA), member of the House Appropriations Subcomt on
Defense; Ervin S. Duggan, former member of the Policy Planning Staff of the
State Department; Angier Biddle Duke, former ambassador to El Salvador and
Spain; Rep. Dante Fascell (D-FL), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Comm;
Hubert H. Humphrey III, Atty Gen. of MN; Samuel P. Huntington, director of
the Center for Intl Affairs at Harvard and former member of the Natl Security
Council; David Ifshin, atty and former head of the Council for Mondale for
President; John T. Joyce, pres of the Intl Union of Bricklayers and Allied
Craftsmen, AFL-CIO; Penn Kemble, chairman of CDM; John Kester, atty, former
assistant to Sec of Defense; Franklin Kramer, former principal deputy assistant
Sec of Defense; Jan Lodal, pres of Intelus and former member of the Natl Security
Council; Philip Merrill, chair and publisher of the Washingtonian; Robert
Murray, dir of Natl Security Programs at Harvard, former senior advisor on
defense for Dukakis for President; Martin Peretz, editor-inchief of The New
Republic; Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-VA), member Senate Foreign Relations Comt;
Peter R. Rosenblatt, pres of CDM and former member of Carter Admin; Eugene
V. Rostow, distinguished professor at the Natl Defense University, former
director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; Robert Scalapino, director
of Inst of East Asian Studies, U of Calif at Berkeley; John Silber, pres of
Boston U, member of the Natl Bipartisan Commission on Central America (Kissinger
Commission); Walter Slocombe, atty, former deputy Undersec of Defense, former
member of the Natl Security Council; Adam Ulam, director of the Russian Research
Ctr, Harvard; Ben J. Wattenberg, chair of CDM; and Harriet Zimmerman, women's
division chair, United Jewish Appeal. (1)
Jeane Kirkpatrick was a prominent member of
the original coalition. (4)
Sources:
1. The Defense Democrat, Vol 1, No 7, CDM,
May 1989.
2. Letterhead from CDM, received July 19,
1989.
3. Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould, Rollback!
Right-wing Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1989).
4. Jerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The
Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (Boston, MA:
South End Press, 1983).
5. Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, Inside
the League (New York, NY: Dodd, Mead &
Co, 1986).
6. New York Magazine, May 5, 1986.
7. The New Republic, May 19, 1986.
8. The Defense Democrat, Vol. 1, No. 7, May
1989.
9. A. Philip Randolph Instutite, "25th
Anniversary Commemoration of the 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," Aug 25,1988.
10. Letter from the CDM, undated, received
in Sep 1986.
11. Letter from the CDM, Sep 23, 1986.
12. Common Cause Magazine, Mar/Apr 1988.
13. Michael Massing, "Contra Aides,"
Mother Jones, Oct 1987.
14. Ben Wattenberg, American Freedom Journal,
Dec 1988/Jan 1989.
15. Michael Massing, "Trotsky's Orphans,"
The New Republic, June 22, 1989.
16. Washington Post, Apr 8, 1987.
17. Report of the Congressional Committees
Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B. , Vol. 12, 1988.
18. Letter from the League for Industrial
Democracy, Aug, 1989.
19. Freedom House, Freedom House: Committeed
to Democratic Principle and Action, 47th year, 1987-1988.
20. Letterhead from Freedom House, Aug 1989.
21. Letter from Rita Freedman, ex dir, Social
Democrats/USA, undated, received July 1989.
22. AIFLD: Agents as Organizers (Albuquerque,
NM: The Resource Center, 1987).
23. Phone conversation with CPD on July 19,
1989.
24. Free Trade Union Institute, list of board
of directors, updated by a phone conversation with FTUI, Aug 1989.
25. Letter from AIFLD, Mar 22, 1989.
26. Fact Sheet, United Food and Commercial
Workers Intl Union, Intl and Foreign Affairs Dept, received Aug 1989.
27. National Endowment for Democracy, Annual
Report, 1988. 28. AFL-CIO Handbook, 1988.
29. List of the board of directors, National
Democratic Institute for International Affairs, May 1989.
30. "The Neocon Family Tree," Mother
Jones, July/Aug 1986.
31. Phone interview with PRODEMCA, Jan 29,
1989.
The underlying cites for this profile are
now kept at Political Research Associates, (617) 666-5300. www.irc-online.org.
