Political Research Associates' Edelman-Bundy Foundation Connections

“Jim Dempsey, Vice President for Public Policy, has been with CDT since 1997. From 2003 to 2005, he served as Executive Director; he currently heads CDT West, in San Francisco. At CDT, Mr. Dempsey concentrates on Internet privacy, government surveillance, and national security issues…Mr. Dempsey has been a member of the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age (2004-2011); the Bill of Rights Defense Committee advisory board (2002-2012); the Board of Directors of the Defending Dissent Foundation (2007-2012); the Industry Advisory Board for the National Counter-Terrorism Center (2005-2006), and the Transportation Security Administration’s Secure Flight Working Group (2005).”

--from the Center for Democracy and Technology website

“Chip Berlet…is on the advisory boards of the Defending Dissent Foundation, the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religion, and PRA's Public Eye magazine, and is a vice-president of the Defending Dissent Foundation. For thirty years Berlet was senior analyst at Political Research Associates…”

--from the www.chipberlet.net website

Political Research Associates’ Edelman-Bundy Foundation Connections

(Note: The following historical article was written in 2002.)

In a 1998 book that was subsidized by the MacArthur Foundation, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, entitled The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers In Arms, a contributing editor of Katrina vanden Heuvel's Nation magazine, Kai Bird, recalled that in June 1968, then-Ford Foundation President McGeorge "Bundy arranged fellowships totaling $131,000 for eight members of" the mysteriously-slain Robert F. "Kennedy's campaign staff." Bird also noted that recipients "included Frank Mankiewicz ($15,000 for a study of the Peace Corps in Latin America), Adam Walinsky ($22,200 for a study of community action programs) and Peter Edelman ($19,090 for a study of community development programs around the world)."

In recent years Peter Edelman has been sitting on the board of a foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation, which subsidizes the alternative media work of Chip Berlet's Political Research Associates [PRA] group. In 2002, for instance, Peter Edelman's Public Welfare Foundation gave a $50,000 grant to Political Research Associates to provide "general support for research center that collects and disseminates information on extremist groups and provides information and training to local, state, and national organizations working to counter extremist activity." PRA's form 990 also indicates at least $90,000 in additional grant money was given to Political Research Associates by Peter Edelman's Public Welfare Foundation between 1993 and 1996; and in 1999, another grant of $50,000 was given to the Political Research Associates group by the Public Welfare Foundation.

Prior to working as a staffperson for RFK and then receiving his Ford Foundation fellowship from former National Security Affairs advisor Bundy, Public Welfare Foundation board member Edelman worked as a law clerk to a Supreme Court Justice named Arthur Goldberg. According to the 1982 book Rooted In Secrecy: The Clandestine Element in Australian Politics by Joan Coxsedge:

 "Arthur Goldberg, the General Counsel of the CIO engineered the expulsion of the Left from this organization...After the left-wing purge of the CIO, Goldberg worked to achieve union with the conservative American Federation of Labor [AFL] headed by rabid anti-communist and long-time CIA stooge, George Meany, and what was left of the CIO."

Public Welfare Foundation board member Edelman is also both the political godfather/rabbi of U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton and a former Clinton Administration official. According to the Center for Responsive Politics' web site, Public Welfare Foundation board member Peter Edelman also gave two campaign contributions, totalling $1,500, to Hillary Rodham-Clinton's campaign on September 26, 2000 and another $1,000 campaign contribution to Senator Rodham-Clinton's campaign on November 9, 2000. Marian Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund NGO also gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to Hillary Rodham-Clinton on November 9, 2000.

In the late 1990s, the Massachusetts-based Political Research Associates [PRA] was also given a $120,000 grant by the San Francisco Foundation. The board of trustees and/or the investment committee of the San Francisco Foundation has included the following members of the Bay Area Establishment in recent years: 1. Levi Strauss Foundation Board Member Peter Haas Jr.; 2. Advent Software Inc. Chair and U. of California-Berkeley Foundation board member Stephanie Marco; 3. Equidex Inc. Chair and former U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg James Hormel; 4. Oakland Private Industry Council CEO Gay Plair Cobb; 5. Brookings Institute Trustee Emeritus and U. of California-Berkeley Foundation board member F. Warren Hellman; 6. Stanford University Trustee Leslie Hume; 7. Pacific Gas & Electric [PG&E] Chief Finance Officer Kent Hardy; 8. Seneca Capital Management Founder Gail Seneca; and 9. Foundation for Chinese Democracy Chair/President Rolland C. Lowe. In addition, the San Francisco Foundation presently controls over $695 million in assets and takes in about $15 million a year in investment income from its corporate stock portfolio.

Contributions exceeding $5,000 were also made to Political Research Associates by the following other individuals or foundations between 1993 and 1996: William & Robie Harris ($32,000); Jean Hardisty ($125,588), Thomas P. Jalkut ($85,000), Hannah Kranzberg ($5,000), Sister Fund ($20,000), CS Fund ($30,000); Funding Exchange ($12,000); Haymarket Peoples Fund ($17,000); Ms. Foundation for Women ($15,000); Nathan Cummings Foundation ($80,000); the Stresand Foundation ($7,500); Threshold Foundation ($27,825); Tides Foundation ($69,260); Unitarian Universalist Veatch ($50,000; Sylvia Goodman ($11,000); Michael Kieschnick ($29,279); Albert A. List Foundation ($75,000); US Trust ($5,032); The New Land Foundation ($5,000); and PRRAC ($10,000). In 1999, additional contributions exceeding $5,000 were made to Political Research Associates by the following individuals and foundations: Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program ($25,000); The Prentice Foundation ($5,000); Stephen & Diana Goldberg Foundation ($10,000); Tides Foundation ($57,550); Albert A. List Foundation ($25,000); Carol Bernstein ($5,000); Irving Harris Foundation ($25,000); Nathan Cummings Foundation ($55,000); Thomas Jalkut ($15,000); Nancy Meier ($15,025);; Warsh-Mott Legacy ($20,000); Chambers Family Fund ($25,000); and the Ms. Foundation For Women ($15,000).

At least $11,000 in politically partisan campaign contributions have also been made by a Jean Hardisty of Political Research Associates since 1992, according to the Center for Responsive Politics web site. On November 15, 1999, for instance Ms. Hardisty gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. And on September 12, 2000, Ms. Hardisty gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to KidPAC.

In the acknowledgment section of the 1995 Eyes Right! book which Chip Berlet edited, the Establishment Foundation-sponsored Political Research Asociates executive wrote: "An extra tip of the hat to Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive for his special assistance." Coincidentally, in recent months Berlet joined Progressive magazine editor Rothschild in attempting to smear and marginalize 9/11 conspiracy journalists and researchers, while apparently failing to do much political research into possible links between the Ford Foundation, the Trilateral Commission, the Carlyle Group and/or the Bush White House.

(conclusion of 2002-written historical article)