“How could they have dared to put that on?” Rosalind Harris wanted to know. “Considering what some of these people were doing, that phrase was really chutzpah.”53 The other main concern was the damage that exposure of covert government involvement might do—indeed, already had done—to the credibility of not just the Committee but the whole voluntary sector in the United States, which depended precisely upon the perception that it was independent of officialdom (just as U.S. women had historically derived much of their moral authority in American society from their perceived independence of the venal, male-dominated world of politics and business). As another unwitting member, Elizabeth Wadsworth, pithily put it, “You cannot do everything to give the impression that you don’t take government money and take it. . . . We did make an issue of it and then we took it. Dumb.”54
The witting suspected that such protests were produced, in part at least, by the anger of the unwitting at having been left out of the loop. Alison Raymond, for example, wondered whether some women had not joined the organization principally “for social reasons”—“they wanted dinner conversation for tomorrow night’s dinner party”—and were now disgruntled at finding out “there was a little inner group” from which they had been excluded. Raymond did not confront the “more pink-tea-ish”
members with this suspicion, however.55 Like other members of the inner group, she regretted having deceived colleagues and, in the wake of the revelations, tried hard to soothe their feelings.
The main line of self-defense employed by the witting was the argument that the CIA had not used its position as donor to manipulate the Committee. “There was no hanky-panky, no underhandedness,” claimed Anne Crolius, “no influence on the committee to do anything other than it intended to do.”56 All the Agency had done was come to the aid of an organization that happened to share its aims and, in the absence of a public U.S. funding agency like the British Council, would otherwise have died through lack of resources. This was also the explanation favored by the CIA itself. “In working with groups like the Committee of Correspondence,” stated Spencer Arnold, “it came down to the fact that [they] had the same goals, methods, techniques, and experience . . . [as] long-range
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United States policy.” Indeed, if anything, “as grantors the agency was probably a lot less closely reviewing than most foundations have to be.”57
Yet evidence suggests that the CIA did try to shape the Committee’s program. The Dearborn Foundation was one channel of influence. This pass-through not only insisted on receiving detailed quarterly reports of the organization’s activities, including its accounts, copies of all its publications, and letters from correspondents (clearly viewed, despite Spencer Arnold’s denials, as a valuable source of intelligence about women’s issues overseas); it also nudged Committee members toward new fields of operation.58 The initial offer of a grant for “expanded activity” in 1955, for instance, came with several suggestions as to how the additional money might be spent, such as on “foreign travel to ensure sound American representation at women’s international meetings” or assistance to foreign women for the same purpose.59 In addition, meetings were occasionally held between certain members of the Committee and individuals claiming to be foundation officers. One set of Committee minutes dated December 1955 notes a visit to New York by a “Mr. McDonogh, representative of the Dearborn Foundation,” and expresses regret “that advance notice was so short” that only a “few of the Committee” were able to meet him.60 One wonders if the lack of warning was not a ruse to ensure the presence at the meeting only of witting members.
Then there were direct contacts between the Committee and CIA officers that were explicitly identified as such. Connie Anderson, for example, met with two Agency operatives once a month in her apartment and handed over the organization’s minutes and other documents. (Jean Picker, who attended some of these meetings, “found these men a little ridiculous . . . like cops-and-robbers kids.”)61 Later this function was taken over by Anne Crolius, when in 1962, fresh from Wellesley, she became Executive Director. According to Dorothy Bauman, “she worked more or less as a courier. When they wanted to get in touch with me it was through Anne because she was paid staff and was there full-time.” Although Anderson maintained that such contacts were limited to the passing of information about the Committee, which was necessary in order for the officers concerned to be able “to persuade their higher-ups that we were worth supporting,” she also admitted that the CIA did issue the occasional directive. “Well, they told us some people to see and some people not to see in other lands.” This included instructions for Committee
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