Committee on the Present Danger

The Committee on the Present Danger denotes a series of hawkish US establishment pressure groups. The original committee founded in 1950, was revived twice, in 1976 and 2004.
==Overview==
Both the first and second incarnations of the Committee sought to use public pressure to influence debates already underway within the Government, concerning the NSC-68 document in 1950, and the Team B exercise in 1976, each of which exaggerated the Soviet threat. The 1976 Committee was the first in which the neoconservatives emerged as a signicant force within the hawkish coalition. They would go on to be the dominant strand in the 2004 Committee which attempted to apply a similar logic to the war on terror.
==First CPD (1950-1953)==
The original CPD was formed in 1950 at the time of the Korean War.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennylvania State University Press, 1998, p28. The committee worked closely with the Truman administration to promote the policy of "containment militarism" outlined in NSC-68,Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, p60. a National Security Council document primarily authored by Paul Nitze.Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, pp.9-10. According to Jerry Wayne Sanders, containment militarism replaced George Kennan's interpretation of the Soviet Union as a primarily political challenge with a view that saw an existential military threat.Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, p.29. 
Sanders argues that NSC-68 presented a distorted picture of Soviet capabilities:
::a fantastic scenario of conventional blitzkrieg was coupled with the knowingly false claim that the U.S.S.R. had already achieved the capability of delivering an atomic blow to the United States. The U.S.S.R. did not embark upon such a long-range bomber program until the mid-1950's and was not a strategic threat to the United States until at least 1957-58 - a situation then seized upon as a "bomber gap," which turned out to be equally apocryphal.Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, p30. 
According to Sanders the real target of containment militarism was Western Europe as much as the Soviet Union:
::While the military threat was indeed contrived, a real Soviet threat - of a political nature - did exist. It was exaggerated. The reason for this hyperbole was fear that Western European nations would adopt an independent neutralist course which would greatly diminish American imperial power, both economic and political, first in that vital region and then in other parts of the world.Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, p34.
The Committee's co-founders; Harvard President James Conant, former under-secretary of the Army Tracy Vorhees and atomic scientist Vannevar Bush made an initial public statement at the Willard Hotel in Washington on 12 December 1950.Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, p54.
They soon came under attack from isolationist conservatives who noted a significant overlap between membership of the CPD and the pre-World War Two Committee To Defend America By Aiding The Allies.Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, p60.
Nevertheless, by the time, the CPD disbanded in 1953, US military spending had quadrupled. Key members would go on to serve in the Eisenhower administration, and containment militarism would not be seriously challenged until Vietnam.Jerry Wayne Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, p13.
===Officers===
*James B. Conant - Chairman
*Tracy S. Voorhees - Vice-Chairman
===Executive Committee===
Julius Ochs Adler | Raymond B. Allen | Frank Altschul | William Douglas Arant | James Phinney Baxter, III | Laird Bell | Harry A. Bullis | Vannevar Bush | William L. Clayton | Robert Cutler | R. Ammi Cutter | Harold Willis Dodds | Charles Dollard | William J. Donovan | Truman K. Gibson, Jr | Meta Glass | Edward S. Greenbaum | Monte H. Lemann | William L. Marbury | Dr William C. Menninger | Frederick A. Middlebush | John Lord O'Brian | Robert P. Patterson | Howard C. Petersen | Stanley Resor | Theodore W. Schultz | Robert E. Sherwood | Robert G. Sproul | Robert L. Stearns | Henry M. Wriston
===Other Members===
Dillon Anderson | Barry Bingham | Mrs Dwight Davis | E.L. DeGolyer | Goldthwaite H. Dorr | David Dubinsky | Leonard K. Firestone | Arthur J. Goldberg | Samuel Goldwyn | W.W. Grant | Paul G. Hoffman | Stanley Marcus | James L. Morrill | Edward R. Murrow | Floyd B. Odlum | J. Robert Oppenheimer | Daniel A. Poling | Samuel I. Rosenman | Edgar W. Smith | Edmund A. Walsh | W.W. Waymack | J.D. ZellerbachJerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, p.87.
==Second CPD==
The key actor in the reformation of the CPD was Eugene Rostow, who in 1972 had helped form the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM), to back Henry Jackson's presidential campaign. In 1974, the CDM attacked "the myth of detente" arguing that "The goal of detente has not been achieved in any sense of the term Americans can accept. There is no evidence that Soviet objectives have changed."Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, pp.26-27. Eventually, 13 of the 18 members of the Foreign Policy Task Force of the CDM, led by Rostow, joined the CPD. Notable among them were Jeane Kirkpatrick, Leon Keyserling, Max Kampelman, Richard Shifter, and John P. Roche.Committee on the Present Danger, Right Web profile, accessed 23 March 2009.
The decision to re-establish the CPD was taken at an organising lunch at the Washington DC Metropolitan Club on 12 March 1976, chaired by Rostow. Among those present were Richard V. Allen, Henry Fowler, Professor Edmund Gullion, Max Kampelman, Lane Kirkland, Charles Burton Marshall, Paul Nitze, David Packard, James Schlesinger, Charles Tyroler, Charles Walker and Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. Other supporters not present included Sol Chaiken, Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, Dean Rusk, Professor Richard Pipes and Herbert Stein.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, pp.27-28.
CPD II expanded on its predecessor's political base to include "top labor officials, Jewish liberals and neoconservative intellectuals". Committee on the Present Danger, Right Web profile, accessed 23 March 2009. Neoconservatives were wary of detente in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War because of fears that the two superpowers could come together to pressure Israel.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, pp.30-31.
According to the British strategist Michael Howard the new group was well funded and "consisting largely of pupils and associates of Albert Wohlstetter, who urged the breaking off of arms-control negotiations and massive rearmament." Michael Howard, Captain Professor The Memoirs of Sir Michael Howard (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006) pp.192-3
The CPD was formally launched on 11 November 1976, three days after Jimmy Carter won the presidential election.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p28. The initial response to the event was muted, with little press coverage and the participants dismissed as 'cold warriors.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p.188. 
However, on 20 October 1976, details of the parallel national intelligence estimate produced by Team B had been leaked to the Boston Globe.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p.121.The Team B report claimed that Soviet military spending was continously increeasing, at a time when it was in fact, sharply decreasing.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p.196. This ultimately provided fodder for the CPD which included Team B members Richard Pipes, Foy Kohler, Paul Nitze and William Van Cleave. By spring 1977, a CPD policy statement What is the Soviet Union up to? by Richard Pipes, received widespread favourable press and television coverage.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p188.
In 1980, 32 CPD members joined the Reagan administration, including Reagan himself, William Casey, Richard Allen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, John Lehman and Richard Perle.Anne Hessing Cahn, Killing Detente, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p30.
===People===
====Executive Committee====
*Eugene V. Rostow - Chairman, Executive Committee | Paul H. Nitze - Chairman, Policy Studies | Henry H. Fowler Co-chairman | Lane Kirkland - Co-chairman | David Packard - Co-chairman | Charls E. Walker - Treasurer | Max M. Kampelman - General Counsel | Charles Tyroler II - Director
Richard V. Allen | Edmund A. Gullion | Rita E. Hauser | Charles Burton Marshall | Richard E. Pipes | John P. Roche | Dean Rusk | Richard J. Whalen | Elmo R. Zumwalt
====Board of Directors====
Theodore C. Achilles | Richard V. Allen | John M. Allison | Eugenie Anderson | Eugene Bardach | Frank R. Barnett | Joseph D. Baroody | Jacob D. Beam | Saul Bellow | Karl R. Bendetsen | Joseph W. Bishop, Jr | Adda B. Bozeman | Donald G. Brennan | Vincent J. Browne | Randolph W. Burgess | John M. Cabot | Glenn W. Campbell | William J. Casey | Sol C. Chaikin | Peter B. Clark | Ray S. Cline | Edwin S. Cohen | William E. Colby | John B. Connally | William Connall | John T. Connor | Colgate W. Darden, Jr | Arthur H. Dean | C. Douglas Dillon | S. Harrison Dogole | Peter H. Dominick | Walter Dowling | Evelyn DuBrow | William DuChessi | Valerie Earle | James T. Farrell | David Fellman | Henry H. Fowler | William H. Franklin | Peter H. B. Frelingshuysen | Martin L. Friedman | Robert H. Ginsburgh | Nathan Glazer | Andrew J. Goodpaster | Peter J. Grace | Gordon Gray | Edmund A. Gullion | Barbara Bates Gunderson | Oscar Handlin | John A. Hannah | David B. Harper | Huntington Harris | Rita E. Hauser | Donald C. Hellman | Alfred C. Herrera | Rachelle Horowitz | J.C. Hurewitz | Belton K. Johnson | Chalmers Johnson | Whittle Johnston | David C. Jordan | Max M. Kampelman | Geoffrey Kemp | Leon H. Keyserling | Lane Kirkland | Jeane J. Kirkpatrick | Foy D. Kohler | Peter Krogh | Ernest W. Lefever | Lyman L. Lemnitzer | Hobart Lewis | W.F. Libby | Sarason D. Liebler | James A. Linen | Seymour Martin Lipset | Mary P. Lord | Jay Lovestone | Clare Booth Luce | John H. Lyons | Donald S. MacNaughton | Leonard H. Marks | Charles Burton Marshall | William McChesney Martin, Jr | Edward A. McCabe | Samuel McCracken | George C. McGhee | Robert E. McNair | John Miller | George C. Mitchell | Joshua M. Morse | Steven Muller | Robert S. Mulliken | Bess Myerson | Thomas S. Nichols | Paul H. Nitze | William V. O'Brien | George Olmsted | David Packard | James L. Payne | Robert L. Pfalzgraff, Jr | Midge Decter Podhoretz | Norman Podhoretz | Uri Ra'anan | Estelle R. Ramey Paul Ramsey | Matthew B. Ridgway | John P. Roche | H Chapman Rose | Peter R. Rosenblatt | Eugene V. Rostow | James H. Rowe, Jr | Dean Rusk | Bayard Rustin | Charles E. Saltzman | Richard M. Scaife | Richard Schifter | Paul Seabury | Albert Shanker | Milan B. Skacel | Fred Smith | Lloyd H. Smith | Kenneth Spang | Ralph I. Straus | Horold W. Sweatt | George K. Tanham | Hobart Taylor, Jr | Maxwell D. Taylor | Edward Teller | Arthur Temple | J.C. Turner | Charles Tyroler II | William R. Van Cleave | Charls E. Walker | Martin J. Ward | Robert E. Ward | Paul S. Weaver | Richard J. Whalen | Eugene P. Wigner | Francis O. Wilcox | Bertram D. Wolfe | Elmo R. ZumwaltJerry W. Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis, South End Press, 1983, pp.154-160.
====Executive committee as of 1989====
Paul Nitze | David C. Acheson | Kenneth L. Adelman | Richard V. Allen | Adda B. Bozeman | Valerie A. Earle | William R. Graham | Charles M. Kupperman | Charles Burton Marshall | Richard E. Pipes | John P. Roche | William Schneider, Jr. | Hugh Scott | Lloyd Smith | Herbert Stein | William R. Van Cleave
==Third CPD (2004)==
In June 2004, The Hill reported that a third incarnation of CPD was being planned, to address the War on Terrorism. The head of the 2004 CPD, lobbyist and former Reagan adviser Peter Hannaford, explained, "we saw a parallel” between the Soviet threat and the threat from terrorism. The message that CPD will convey through lobbying, media work and conferences is that "the war on terror needs to be won," he said.James Kirchick, Cold warriors return for war on terrorism, The Hill, 30 June 2004, via the Internet Archive. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies was closely involved in reviving the Committee.Success Stories], Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, accessed 23 March 2008.Matthew Yglesias, [http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=8226 Present Dangers, The American Prospect, 27 July 2004.
Members of the 2004 CPD include Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, former CIA director R. James Woolsey, Jr., former National Security Advisor to President Reagan, Robert C. McFarlane and Reagan administration official and 1976 Committee founder Max M. Kampelman.James Kirchick, Cold warriors return for war on terrorism, The Hill, 30 June 2004, via the Internet Archive.At the 20 July launching of the 2004 CPD, Lieberman and Senator Jon Kyl were identified as the honorary co-chairs.Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl, "The Present Danger," The Washington Post, 20 July 2004. Other notable members listed on the CPD website include Laurie Mylroie, Norman Podhoretz, Frank Gaffney, Danielle Pletka and other associates of the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Boeing Company.Members, Committee on the Present Danger, archived by the Internet Archive, 21 July 2004, accessed 23 March 2009. Of those involved Kenneth Adelman, Max Kampelman, William Van Cleave, Charles Kupperman and Jeane Kirkpatrick had all been members of CPD II.Jim Lobe, Neocons Revive Cold War Group, Antiwar.com, 21 July 2004.
Peter Hannaford resigned as director a day after the launch, after journalist Laura Rozen revealed that his former lobbying firm, the Carmen Group had represented Joerg Haider's Austrian Freedom Party.Eli Lake, Director of Present Danger Committee Resigns After a Day on the Job , New York Sun, 22 July 2004, via the Internet Archive.
===Principals===
*Joe Lieberman - Honorary co-Chairman
*Jon Kyl - Honorary co-Chairman
===Board of Directors===
*George P. Shultz - co-Chairman | James Woolsey - co-Chairman | Kenneth L. Adelman | Rachel Ehrenfeld | Clifford May | William Van Cleave
===Members===
 
 Morris Amitay
 William Brock
 Charles Kupperman
 Elie Wiesel
 Eliot Cohen
 Henry Cooper
 Robert McFarlane
 Ben Wattenberg
 Midge Decter
 Steve Forbes
 Edwin Meese
 Stephen Solarz
 
 
Frank Gaffney
 Jeffrey Gedmin
 Joshua Muravchik
 Dov Zakheim
 Newt Gingrich
 Bruce Jackson
 Laurent Murawiec
 Nina Shea
 Max Kampelman
 Phyllis Kaminsky
 Michael Novak
 Peter Rosenblatt
 
 
 Jack Kemp
 Jeane Kirkpatrick
 Daniel Pipes
 Norman Podhoretz
 Bradford Belzak
 Ilan Berman
 Barry Blechman
 Jerome Hauer
 Peter Brookes
 Jacquelyn Davis
 Candace de Russey
 Victor Davis Hanson
 
 
 Viola Herms Drath
 Richard Fairbanks
 John Fonte
 Jeffrey Gayner
 Joseph diGenova
 Alvin Felsenberg
 Benjamin Gilman
 Lawrence Haas
 Amoretta Hoeber
 Michael Horowitz
 Peter Huessy
 Kenneth Jensen
 
 
 John Joyce
 John Kester
 Robert Kogod
 Anne Korin
 Robert Lieber
 Gal Luft 
 Barton Marcois 
 Dana Marshall
 Dave McCurdy
 Brett McGurk
 Philip Merrill
 Hedieh Mirahmadi
 
 Khaleel Mohammed
 John Norton Moore
 Powell Moore
 Laurie Mylroie
 Chet Nagle
 Kamal Nawash
 Mark Palmer
 Robert Pfaltzgraff
 James Phillips
 Bruce Ramer
 Samantha Ravich
 Nina Rosenwald
 
 
 Edward Rowny
 Sol Sanders
 George Sawyer
 Pedro Sanjuan
 Richard Shifter
 Peter Schweizer
 John Shenefield
 Jeffrey Stein
 James Strock
 Ron Silver
 Max Singer
 Rob Sobhani 
 
 
 Victoria Toensing
 Robert Turner
 Charles Walker
 John Whitehead
 Michael Wildes
 George Whitman
 Francisco Wong-Diaz
 Farid Ghadry
 Roland Arnall
 Mark Benson
 Walter Berns
 M. Zuhdi Jasser
 
===International Members===
 
 Jose Maria Aznar, Spain
 Edmond Aphandery, France
 Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic
 Akbar Atri , Iran
 Moshe Yaalon, General, Israel Defense Force (former chief of staff)
 
 
 Saad al-Din Ibrahim, Egypt
 Enrique Krauze
 Helen Szamuely, UK
 David Pryce-Jones, UK
 Gerald Frost, UKCPD Our Team, accessed 14 January 2009
 
==Contact, External Links, Further Reading, Notes==
===Contact===
:Website: www.fightingterror.org (URL registered by APCO Online)
:Mailing Address: P.O. Box 65196
:Washington, DC 20035
:E-mail: info@fightingterror.org
:Telephone: 202/778-1032
:Fax: 202/659-7923
===External Links===
*Tom Barry, "US:Danger, danger everywhere", Asia Times Online, 23 June 2006
*Tom Barry, "The 'Present Danger' War Parties", International Relations Center, 16 June 2006
*Paul Rogers, "The present danger: from “cold war” to “war on terror”," Opendemocracy, 26 August, 2004
*Patrick J. Buchanan,The Committee on the Present Confusion, Antiwar.com, 26 July 2004
*Justin Raimondo, "The Present Danger: Neocons attempt a comeback," Antiwar.com, 23 July 2004.
*Jim Lobe, "They’re Back: Neocons Revive the Committee on the Present Danger, This Time Against Terrorism", CommonDreams, July 22, 2004 .
*Eli Lake, "Director of Present Danger Committee Resigns After a Day on the Job: Hannaford Linked to Austrian Nationalist Who Was Accused of Praising Nazi Policies," The New York Sun, 22 July 2004.
*Laura Rozen, "Oy Vey II," War and Piece, 20 July 2004.
*Committee on the Present Danger website (2004 incarnation)
*"Committee Borrows Old Name to Fight New Danger," CPD press release, 20 July 2004.
*Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl, "The Present Danger," The Washington Post, 20 July 2004.
*James Kirchick, "Cold warriors return for war on terrorism," The Hill, 30 June 2004
===Further Reading===
*Jerry W. Sanders (1983) Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment, Boston: south end Press.
*Sourcewatch Committee on the Present Danger
*Rightweb Committee on the Present Danger
==Notes==
Category:neocons