The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a Cold War-era, anti-Soviet group, was resurrected in June
2004 by group of hardline policy figures, including many neoconservatives who were members of the 1970s-era
CPD, to support an aggressive "war on terror." This is the third incarnation of the committee.
In its two previous manifestations, the CPD served as a pressure group, first in 1950 to win public
and congressional approval for a post-World War II remilitarization and troop deployment that helped
initiate the Cold War, and then again in 1976 by a large group of Cold War hawks who wanted to eradicate
the U.S.-Soviet Union détente and roll back communism rather than continue the containment strategy
that had largely guided U.S. foreign policy since the 1950s.
The CPD says it "is dedicated to protecting and expanding democracy by supporting policies aimed
at winning the global war against terrorism and the movements and ideologies that drive it." According
to its website, "Our mission is to educate free people everywhere about the threat posed by global
radical Islamist and fascist terrorist movements; to counsel against appeasement of terrorists; to
support policies that are part of a strategy of victory against this menace to freedom; and to support
policies that encourage the development of civil society and democracy in those regions from which
the terrorists emanate."
The CPD's leadership is dominated by erstwhile Cold Warriors and leading figures of the neoconservative
political faction and pro-Israel right. George Shultz, secretary of state during the Reagan presidency,
and former CIA head James Woolsey are CPD
co-chairs, and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sen. Joseph
Lieberman (I-CT) serve as CPD's honorary co-chairs, giving the CPD a sheen of bipartisanship.
Jose Maria Aznar, former Spanish president, and Vaclav Havel, former Czech president, are CPD's international
leaders. Other notable members include Kenneth
Adelman, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Nina
Shea, Danielle Pletka, Peter Hannaford, Clifford
May, Randy Scheunemann, and William
Van Cleave, Akbar Atri, and Moshe Yaalon.
The committee is a not-for-profit (501(c)(4)) organization. Its website says that its "membership
is limited to those in private life and does not include elected or appointed full-time federal or
state officials or candidates for public office. ... As a committee, we have no ties or obligations to
any administration or political party."
Jeane Kirkpatrick, a CPD member before
her death in 2006, said the committee's members are largely "friends of mine," and that "a
number of the people involved in it are also members of Freedom
House," a neoconservative-led human-rights organization on whose board of trustees Kirkpatrick
once served (The Hill, June 30, 2004).
A proponent of a long-term U.S. military commitment in Iraq, the CPD and its members have also been
outspoken in their support for aggressive U.S. action against Iran and have helped push the idea of
intervention against Tehran into the national spotlight. The CPD's website features an "Iran Update" section,
the contents of which are regularly emailed to subscribers; its members' writings on Iran are featured
on its homepage, and it produces "policy papers" devoted specifically to Iran. One "Iran
Update," titled "Iran's Other Proxy War Against the West," argued that Iraq wasn't the
only place Tehran was causing problems for the U.S.-led "war on terror." It argued that " Iran's
ayatollahs are attempting to subvert the fragile, pro-Western government of President Hamid Karzai
in Afghanistan" by returning Afghan refugees and purportedly shipping arms to the Taliban. The
update concluded: "All of which begs the question: are the Americans, and the international
community, prepared to do anything about it?" (CDP Iran Update, September 19, 2007). An update
from mid-October 2007, titled "Iran and the Bomb: Ominous Nuclear Progress in Tehran," lambasted
Bush administration officials for downplaying the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program, arguing that
the new information allegedly indicated that Iran "will have enough fissile material to field
a nuclear weapon by sometime next fall—at the latest" (CPD, October 18, 2007).
The CPD in general is also hawkish on NATO expansion and missile defense. CPD policy papers have included The
Continuing Need for United Nations Reform, by Richard Schifter and Pedro Sanjuan; Oil and
Security, by Shultz and Woolsey; Missile Defense for the 21st Century, authored by Henry
Cooper et al.; and Iran: An Update, by Kyl and Lieberman. The CPD also published a symposium
DVD in 2005 called Propaganda & Terrorism: Policy Options for the War of Ideas, and endorses
and promotes NATO: An Alliance for Freedom, a study produced by the Foundation for Analysis
and Social Studies in Madrid.
Beginnings. The third incarnation of the CPD was officially launched on July 20, 2004 during
a press conference in Washington, DC ("Committee
Borrows Old Name to Fight New Danger," CPD press release, July 20, 2004). The group had earlier
been listed by the Foundation for the Defense
of Democracies (FDD) as the cosponsor of a June 16, 2004 symposium on "Iraq's Future and
the War on Terrorism." In a press release about the conference, FDD described
the CPD as a "venerable Cold Warrior group, now in the process of being recreated." Since
its beginnings, CPD has been closely interlinked with FDD. Clifford May, FDD's president, has directed
CPD's policy committee. FDD board members Steve
Forbes and Jack Kemp are also CPD members.
Three of FDD's four "distinguished advisers"—Woolsey, Newt
Gingrich, and Lieberman—are also CPD members.
At the official launch, former CIA director Woolsey said that the CPD aimed to combat what he called "a
totalitarian movement masquerading as a religion." Repeating old neoconservative axioms, he said: "We
understand very well that this time, the danger that we must address is a danger to the United States
but also a danger to democracy and civil society throughout the world, and it is very much our hope
to be of support and assistance to those who seek to bring democracy and civil society to the part
of the world, the Middle East extended, to which this Islamist terror is now resonant in and generated
from."
Also speaking at the press conference, Lieberman said CPD's objective was "to form a bipartisan
citizens' army, which is ready to fight a war of ideas against our Islamist terrorist enemies, and
to send a clear signal that their strategy to deceive, demoralize, and divide America will not succeed."
Accompanying the CPD's official launch were full-page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Washington
Times. On the same day, honorary co-chairs Lieberman and Kyl published an op-ed for the Washington
Post titled "The Present Danger," which likened the war against terrorism to the Cold
War. They wrote: "The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks awoke all Americans to the capabilities
and brutality of our new enemy, but today too many people are insufficiently aware of our enemy's
evil worldwide designs, which include waging jihad against all Americans and reestablishing a totalitarian
religious empire in the Middle East. The past struggle against communism differed in some ways from
the current war against Islamist terrorism. But America's freedom and security, which each has aimed
to undermine, are exactly the same" (Washington Post, July 20, 2004).
Among Lieberman and Kyl's core concerns were the rising anti-war movement and the criticism of the
war by the realists and traditional conservatives. They wrote: "The leaders of the Democratic
and Republican parties have so far stood firm in their commitment to finish the job in Iraq and to
fight to victory the war on terrorism. But that bipartisan consensus is coming under growing public
pressure and could fray in the months ahead. Although the tide is turning in the war on terrorism,
a political undertow in this country could wash out our recent gains. We must not let this happen."
Despite the splashy media launch, CPD got off to a shaky official start. On its second day, CPD Managing
Director Peter Hannaford was asked to resign from the board after complaints from the Anti-Defamation
League and concerns from CPD members that Hannaford was registered as a lobbyist for the nativist Austrian
Freedom Party, then headed by the right-wing nationalist Jörg Haider, who has spoken highly of
the orderly practices of the Third Reich. Freelance journalist Laura Rozen, a close observer of the
neoconservatives, published information about Hannaford's international lobbying work in her blog.
Hannaford is a communications specialist who runs his own international PR firm and who was Ronald
Reagan's top communications official during his years as governor and for his successful presidential
campaign in 1980 (War and Piece, July 20, 2004).
Precursors. Writing about the membership of CPD and its links to the 1970s version CPD, Jim
Lobe of Inter Press Service observed: "A number of members of the new CPD, including [Max]
Kampelman, Kemp, Kirkpatrick, [Joshua] Muravchik,
Gaffney, and Woolsey himself, overlap with the membership of the advisory boards of the Likud-oriented Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Middle
East Forum, or the U.S. Committee for a
Free Lebanon. In addition, a husband-and-wife team who played key roles in the evolution of neoconservatism
from the late 1960s to the present and who also were associated with both CDM [ Coalition
for the Democratic Majority] and CPD-2, former Commentary editor Norman
Podhoretz and his spouse, Midge Decter (who
co-chaired the Committee for the Free World with [Donald]
Rumsfeld during the Reagan administration), have also joined the new CPD" (Foreign Policy
In Focus, July 21, 2004).
The original CPD, formed at the prodding of the State Department in the years after World War II,
was a committee of prominent citizens—Democrats and Republicans—including presidents of universities,
foundation directors, and corporate leaders who aimed to engender congressional and public support
for the coming Cold War. It aimed to defuse postwar isolationist sentiment within the Republican Party
and on the political left by raising fears of a communist incursion (for an exhaustive account of the
first and second incarnations of the CPD, see Jerry Sanders , Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee
on the Present Danger, South End Press, 1983).
The second CPD, in contrast, was formed by Democratic Party hawks in opposition to the increasing
consensus in favor of détente and arms control agreements within government and among the leadership
of both political parties. While it incorporated liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans,
the Jackson Democrats—who would later join the Reagan administration and identify themselves as neoconservatives—were
the second CPD's driving ideological and operational force. Like its third incarnation, the second
CPD was staunchly pro-Israel.
The third and current CPD has a narrower political base than either of its predecessors, despite its
best efforts to represent itself as nonpartisan. Although it has managed to incorporate some major
political figures, such as George Shultz, this CPD has few real connections to corporate America, the
leadership of either party, or such social sectors as labor, churches, or ethnic groups.
Funding and membership. According to Media Transparency, in 2005 the CPD had revenues of $271,000
and expenditures of $300,000 (MediaTransparency.org, CPD profile). Beyond that, little information
is available regarding the CPD's funding. When asked about the committee's funding sources, Hannaford
told the Washington Post that two individuals, whom he declined to identify, had paid for CPD's
costly launch (cited in Pat Buchanan, "The Committee on the Present Confusion," WorldNetDaily,
July 26, 2004). According to CPD's website, its "activities are wholly financed by voluntary contributions.
[CPD's] objective is to have a broad base of public support."
Other CPD members, besides those already mentioned, include: Morris
Amitay, Ilan Berman, William Brock, Eliot
Cohen, Henry Cooper, Jeffrey Gedmin, Bruce
Jackson, Phyllis Kaminsky, Jack Kemp, Charles
Kupperman, Robert McFarlane, Edwin Meese, Laurent
Murawiec, Michael Novak, Daniel
Pipes, Peter Rosenblatt, Stephen Solarz, Raymond
Tanter, Kenneth Timmerman, Ben
Wattenberg, Elie Wiesel, and Dov Zakheim.
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Contact Information
Committee on the Present Danger
P.O. Box 33249
Washington, DC 20033-3249
Telephone: 202-207-0190
Fax: 202-207-0191
Email: info@fightingterror.org
Website: www.fightingterror.org
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