CONGRESSMAN'S FOUNDATION TARGETS COMUNIST 'THREAT'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180067-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 67
• Publication Date: August 22, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180067-6
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22 Au'lust 1981
Congressman's Found athm
CO
_iaraels M. munist I areaf
By Mary Battiata
W ,hington Post sta(i'Wrtter
When Rep. Larry McDonald came
to Washington from Georgia in 1975,
one of the committees he said he)
would like to join was the House
Internal Security Committee, which
was the new name for the old House
Committee on Un-American Activ-
i ties..
But as luck would have it, House
Democrats disbanded the committee
in 1975, and McDonald, a longtime
member of the. John Birch Society,
was left out in- the cold, a Commu-
nist-hunter withouta dragnet,
But not for long. A year and a
half ago, McDonald created his own
private foundation, .Western Goals.
Its stated mandate, among other
things, is to ."fight Communist-
controlled penetrations and subver-
sion" o the U.S. government and its
institutions.
"A3 a tax-exempt organization," a
recent foundation letter said, "[West-
ern Goals] will use every legitimate
and legal means to halt and reverse
our country's abdication of respon-
sibility of the ideals and philosophy
that contributed to our greatness of
the past."
And the battle continues. Tucked
away in a swank town house in Al-
exandria, McDonald's foundation,.
with a full-time staff of five, the help
of an advisory group of retired gen
erals and John Birch Society mem-
bers, is conducting its' own tax-
exempt war on terrorism and what
McDonald views- as -a. =worldwide
Communist threat.
Its aim, Western Goals says, is to
serve as "the first and only public
foundation to .:. fill the critical gap
caused by the crippling of the FBI,`
the disabling of the House Commits
tee on Un-American Activities - and
the destruction- of crucial goverment
files." Already is place are books,
newsletters and seminars, including
ones on subversions 4z the Caribbean,
Africa and South America
McDonald says tht the founda
tions of the Joseph McCarthy era. "I
thougl}t witch hunts went out with
Nathaniel Hawthorne," he said.
The information on "terrorism
and subversion" that Western Goals
will accumulate and feed into its Al-
exandria computer will come largely
from "public records" and the files of
retired government employes "who
choose to make their information
available to us," he said.-
McDonald, by profession a urolo-
gist from Marietta, mien
monitor Communist activity in
vo n anu aro ins ecause
He,thinks Communists have -made
-inroa ere an review t e trio-
pang o . in genc aagencies,"
and w a
a recent news e
r id
"international terrorist so
art
naddition, his foundation regu-
larly- reports to its members . on or-
gs1-tizations. it considers to be ques-
tionable. Among those watched are
the - Helsinki-based World Peace
Council and the Institute for Policy
Studies,. Morton Halperin's Center
for.National Security Studies, both
in Washington.
Western Goals' monthly newslet-
ters also feature profiles of the foun-
dation's 18-member advisory group,
which includes novelist Taylor Cald-
well, Rep. John Ashbrook (R-Ohio),
Mrs. Walter Brennan, widow of the
actor, physicist Edward Teller, re-
tired Joint Chiefs chairman-Thomas
M90 rer, and retired generals George
S -Patton. JII, John Singlaub and
Lewis- `Walt.'"
,According to McDonald, the four
dation,.which has been granted tax
:exempt status by the Internal Rev-
; enue Service, is working toward an
annual budget, of $2.5 million to $3
'million after spending more than $1
'million this year. It has sent out at
least two solicitation letters this
summer to potential subscribers
Around the nation, seeking donations'
in $25 to $1,000 amounts to fund the
,foundation's activities.
'Among the things contributors are
'navinsr for. is a computer for a file on
"those who would seek to bring rev-
any merger with totalitarians impos-
sible."
Western Goals literature says that
the organization's "veteran analysts
will work closely" with official agen.
cies, but "security reasons prevent us
from telling you the details of this
truly remarkable leap forward."
Western Goals is not the only pri-
vate Washington group that moni-
tors the activities of political Organ-,
izations. Group Research Inc., at 419
New Jersey Ave. SE on Capitol Hill,
specializes in assembling information
about right-wing groups in this coun-
try.
:._
The. staff of McDonald's founda-
tion is interlocked with his congres-
sional staff. I : -.
Linda Catoe Cruel), the director of
the foundation, for which McDonald
says she is paid about $20,000, also
has a part-time secretarial position
on McDonald's congressional staff.
Before that she worked for 12 years
in the office ' of Sen. Strom Thur-
mond (R-S.C.) as a special assistant.
The editor of Western Goals':pub-
lications is John Rees, whose wife,
Louise, was a staff member of the
defunct House Internal Security
Committee and now works in
McDonald's office as a researcher. )
The British-born Rees is a former
police informant and now the Wash--
ington bureau chief of the John
Birch Society weekly "The Review of
the News." In addition, he puts out a
biweekly intelligence ~ newsletter
called Intelligence Digest that has
been supplied to police departments
around the country.
Spokesmen for the Institute- for
Policy Studies and the Center for
National Security Studies, research
groups that have been the subject of
Western Goals' reports alleging sub-
versive activities, scoff at the foun-
dation's charges, . and-:,-deride the
scholarship of its publications, in-
cluding ones titled "Red Tide Rising
in the Carolinas,": "Ally:. Betrayed
Nicaraguai" and `Broken Seals,",
a report on attempts to destroy the
foreign and domestic-: intelligence
capabilities of the United States.
"Most things in 'Broken Seals' are
ridiculous twists of meaning," says
Jay Peterzell of the Center for Na-
tional Security Studies.
"It's hooligan journalism.?..'John
tion's activities do not amount to an` in general to "rebuild and strengthen Rees is a master of innuendo, false
effort to b',% h-t< +t,e :....m.:..,. tha .,,,li+;.bi e .............. a.,a a,,..:at nrPm;naa Qha,n?A ,...,..a...: _ "
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180067-6
olutionary change to America," and