THE MADISON GROUP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201250018-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: December 4, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

IF-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201250018-4
Pi1Gri~
ON
istration - the group of doves that
John Carbaugh likes to call "the Mon-
dale mafia."
di
G
h
roup.
e Ma
son
? J,~,, Most of the time, t
operated as a separate locus of power; f
`~' with the staffers' senators not fully]
IIad i s` b .3t knowing (or wanting to know) what
their employees were doing. Thus,,
Carbaugh's operation can be viewed l
G 0 as (1) a cabal of ambitious, , r-wised ideologues out to grab powerower, or
P (2) a patriotic task force drawn to-
gether by a great issue - the danger-
ous drift of American security. -
By William Saf? ire ' "We stole the doves' idea," explains
Carbaugh today. In the 1976 interreg-
WASHINGTON; Dec 3, On Jan. 4 ' >. num, accommodatianists shrewdlyy
of this year, 'a dozen men gathered in helped each other into second-level post.
Room 607 of the Madison Hotel? in tions of policy formulation and opera-
Washington-D.C., D.C., to see what they tional influence. As a result, the dovish
could do to oust soft-liners from power. mindsets of William Miller, Richard
Most were about 35 years old; all Moose, David Aaron, Anthony Lake,
.were hawks. in foreign policy and de- David McGiffert, Roger Molander and
fense fields; allwere present or former Marshall. Schulman reinforced one an-
Congressional staffers; all had security other and determined the Carter Ad-
clearances of top secret or higher. ministration's foreign-defense course,
For students of Washington's under- easily turning aside the half-hearted
ground "power ronde," where old-boy ' hawkishness of a Brzezinski.
networks are replaced by new-boy net- Today, the Madison Group seeks tot
works, which; in turn are- ousted by follow that example. The Reagan De-,
newer-boy :networks, the bipartisan fense transition team is staffed by
Madison. Group -which met every Carbaugh, Kraemer, McCoy, Perle
other Friday forlunch to devise ways and Bill Schneider; the Reagan Arms
to bedevil, embarrass and defeat the Control team has Pillsbury and Sulli-
doves in high places - offers a fasci- van; the Reagan State Department
. nating case study, team has Carbauga and Perle, and the
The organizer was John Carbaugh, C.I.A. team?has. Cordevilla and Mark
..
who had been press aide to Strom Schneider. The Group is "in."
Thurmond, earned a law degree, and The ndale set is still fighting -
has served Jesse Helms since 1974. Bill Miller of the Senate Intelligence
Carbaugh had helped orchestrate the Committee staff was able to get arry
blocking of SALT II ratification in Goldwater to ire a couple of the best
1979; he formed the Institute of Ameri- Madison groupies, who were promptly
can Relations, a tax-exempt founda- rehired after the intercession of other
tion that netted a half-million dollars members' senators.
to fiance a newsletter and later pub.. Now that they're triumphant; will
lish a book,. "A Program for Military 'the Madison Group cling together in
Independence"; it r also - paid for power as well as those derided as the
lunches and trips for the Madison "Mondale mafia"? - Probably not "5
Group, power's bells are breaking up that old.:
Sven - Kraemer, (Senator Tower's Carbaugh and Pillsbury are frown
staff), Quentin Crommelin Jr. (Thur- ing at each other on the issue of loyalty
mond),. Tidal McCoy (Garn), Richard to Richard Allen; pro-Haig and anti-
Perie` (ex-Jackson), William Haig lines are already being drawn;
Schneider' (Representative Kemp), the outgoing network is seeding the
Michel Pillsbury(Senate Steering), media with horrific tales of the'
David Sullivan (Senator Gordon Hum- "cabal,": and some associates - of
phrey), Jack' Davis (Stone), Robert Group members are still in such a
Andrews: (Glenn), Mark Schneider leaky habit that The New 'York Times
(Gann), Angelo Cordevilla (Wallop), has been receiving copies of all transi-
Margo Carlisle (McClure). The "out- lion memos even before the Reagan hi-
sider" was Charles Kupperman, of the muckeymucks do.
Committee on the Present; Danger, Despite these cracks in what used to
who later became informal liaison be a united front, the Madison Group-
?: with Ronald Reagan's Richard Allen.. . that. newest-boy-network, plus Margo
The:.Madison. Group was loose, in- will slot itself into the niche now oc
Choate, but effective in drawing issues ;,: cupied by its ideological adversary.
-burying SALT II, challenging aid to That's healthy; when the voters speak,
Nicaragua's leftists, and above all in the bureaucracy should respond.
creasing the. defense budget. At the The power ronde never ends. Even i
same time, some members excelled in as I write, some of the more ambitious'
channeling otherwise unobtainable in. ..; doves are thinking of forming a group .
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