It was this tradition Meyer was hoping to harness in the Cold War when he summoned Bauman to Washington. After hearing her repeat her stories about communist propaganda aimed at women—the promises of sexual equality, the attacks on American womanhood, and the appeals to a supposedly feminine desire for “world peace”—the Deputy Chief of the International Organizations Division asked Bauman to carry out a survey of women’s associations in the United States, “to see if they [were] doing anything about any of this.”7 Two weeks and fifty-five interviews later, Bauman reported back to Meyer. The picture she painted of U.S. attempts to win female hearts and minds was not a flattering one. Apart from “some hospitality to United Nations delegates’ wives,” American women’s organizations were currently doing almost nothing to combat the communist peace offensive. Official activity in the field was similarly negligible. Foreign exchange programs, in particular, appeared systematically to ignore women. In contrast, communist women leaders were “competent and dynamic,” “twice as disciplined and well-trained.” What should the CIA do, Meyer asked. Bauman now resurrected a proposal she had originally made in her 1948 State Department report. The government must lend its support, secretly if necessary, to the creation of “an organization of a small number of intelligent and high-minded United States women leaders who would assist women leaders in other countries in building voluntary organizations using democratic methods.” The group should have an executive director, secretary, and small office in New York, “with an appropriate cover.”8 Meyer’s response was immediate. “Let’s get started,” he said.9
Almost immediately after her visit to Washington, Bauman learned of the emergence in New York of a group that bore an uncanny resemblance to the organization she had just outlined to Meyer. Led by her old friend Rose Parsons, a former chief of the Red Cross Volunteers and member of the blue-blooded Peabody clan, the “Anonymous Committee,” as it called itself initially, was made up of prominent American women all of whom were experienced in the world of voluntary organizations, connected in one capacity or another with the United Nations, and fed up with communist attacks on the United States. At an organizing meeting, held in the elegant surroundings of the Women’s University Club on April 16,
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1952, Parsons reported on the “devious methods” employed by communist propagandists: “holding large conferences, organizing letter-writing campaigns, and using other mass-communication media which in many cases appeared above reproach on the surface, yet were in reality only clever disguises for the communist aims.” Various ideas for counteracting this campaign were discussed, including the suggestion that members use Mother’s Day as an opportunity to challenge communist efforts to appeal to women’s “maternal” instincts—although it was also pointed out that, since its founding in the nineteenth century as a call for disarmament and peace, “Mother’s Day in the U.S. had acquired a mawkish, sentimental aura.” What was clear was that the “undertaking would be a big one, and that to do it well would require funds.”10 One member mentioned the Ford Foundation as a potential sponsor, another the Advertising Council. A third suggestion, recorded in a rough draft of the meeting’s minutes but omitted from the final version, was “that maybe the Government could subsidize the enterprise (though this would have to be done secretly to achieve the desired results).”11
Whether or not this initiative was entirely spontaneous is unclear; but the fact that covert government subsidies were discussed as one among several funding possibilities seems to bear out committee members’ later claims that, at this early stage, they were acting independently of the CIA. In any case, shortly after the founding meeting, Bauman met with Rose Parsons on Cape Cod and showed her the paper commissioned by Meyer. The impulsive Parsons “just grabbed my report, took it right out my hand,” Bauman remembered. “She was not a disciplined person but she had all the contacts in the world, being a Peabody. She was all for going to Allen Dulles. I had to hold on to her. It was really delightful.”12 The two agreed that Parsons’s group should serve the function of the government-sponsored body proposed by Bauman. The latter started attending meetings of the new group in October 1952 and renewed her contact with the International Organizations Division. In December, the committee prepared a seven-page prospectus laying out its purpose, plan of operation, and budgetary needs, ostensibly for submission to private foundations. On January 27, 1953, Parsons announced to a meeting at her Manhattan residence that, “thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Bauman,” the group had just received a gift of $25,000 from a “donor, representing a group of people,