Campaign Contributions & The Nation Magazine

The Nation magazine editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, is the daughter of a former member of the International Rescue Committee [IRC] named William vanden Heuvel. Nation editor Vanden Heuvel's father is mentioned in the book The Cultural Cold War by Frances Stoner Saunders in the following reference to the CIA-linked Farfield Foundation:

"First president of the Farfield [Foundation], and the CIA's most significant front-man, was Julius `Junkie' Fleischmann, the millionaire heir to a high yeast and gin fortune...He had helped finance The New Yorker...`The Farfield Foundation was a CIA foundation and there were many such foundations,' Tom Braden went on to explain...Other Farfield directors included William vanden Heuvel a New York lawyer who was close to both John and Bobby Kennedy."

A short review by Michael Rogin of The Cultural Cold War book, titled "When The CIA Was The NEA," appeared in The Nation's June 12, 2000 issue. It also made a reference to "small CIA-created nonprofits, especially the Farfield foundation," yet failed to disclose to The Nation readers that the father of the magazine's editor used to sit on the Farfield Foundation board. In the 1950s, the Farfield Foundation helped subsidize the activity of the liberal anti-communist American Committee for Cultural Freedom. As the book The Higher Circles by G. William Domhoff noted in 1970:

"It seems that in the mid-fifties the head of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom was having trouble getting money for his project. So he wrote to Edward Lilly, a member of a governmental agency for coordinating intelligence and psyschological warfare operations, to plead his case. At the same time he wrote to [non-communist leftist Norman] Thomas, asking him to get in touch with [then-CIA Director] Allen Dulles via telephone. Shortly thereafter the American Committee for Cultural Freedom received $14,000 from the Farfield Foundation and the Asia Foundation...Thomas then wrote to the committee head: `I am, of course, delighted that the Farfield Foundation came through...'"

Like her father, Nation editor Vanden Heuvel also makes a lot of campaign contributions to U.S. politicians. According to the Center for Resposive Politics' web site, since 1990 she has made over 65 separate campaign contributions to various U.S. politicians and campaign committees. On March 1, 2002, for example, the Nation editor made a $5,000 contribution to Emily's List, which is a political action committee [PAC] that helps subsidize the campaigns of Democratic Party Establishment women politicians. In addition, on July 9, 2010, Nation editor Vanden Heuvel contributed another $25,000 to Emily's List. The Working Family Party in NYC also received a $10,000 campaign contribution from The Nation editor on September 23, 2008. Since 2008, Nation magazine writer Katha Pollitt has also contributed over $12,000 to the campaigns of U.S. politicians. On September 19,2008, for example, Nation writer Pollitt gave a $7,700 campaign contribution to the DNC Services Corporation. In addition, Pollitt made a $2,300 campaign contribution to Barack Obama's campaign on September 3, 2008 and a $2,150 campaign contribution to Barack Obama's campaign on September 11, 2008.

Coincidentally, the former employer of Nation Institute Treasurer Catharine Stimpson--the MacArthur Foundation--gave The Nation Institute a $118,000 grant in 1999. And two grants (totalling $37,500) were given to The Nation Institute in 1998 by Billionaire Speculator George Soros's Open Society Institute. That same year, The Nation Institute also was given a $100,000 grant by The Merck Fund. And in 2000, around $73,000 in government grants were also received by The Nation Institute. And, not surprisingly, during much of the first decade of the 21st century, The Nation Magazine's publisher, Victor Navasky, was also either the Magazine Journalism Center of Columbia University's Director or the publisher of Columbia University's Columbia Journalism Review magazine.