Freedom House - History

History

Freedom House was founded in October 1941. Among its founding members were George Field, Dorothy Thompson, Wendell Willkie, Herbert Agar, Herbert Bayard Swope, Ralph Bunche, Father George B. Ford, Roscoe Drummond and Rex Stout. George Field (1904–2006) was executive director of the organization until his retirement in 1967.

According to its website, Freedom House "emerged from an amalgamation of two groups that had been formed, with the quiet encouragement of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to encourage popular support for American involvement in World War II at a time when isolationist sentiments were running high in the United States." During World War II Freedom House sponsored the weekly radio program, Our Secret Weapon (1942–1943), a CBS radio series created to counter Axis shortwave radio propaganda broadcasts. Writer Rex Stout, chairman of the Writers' War Board and representative of Freedom House, would rebut the most entertaining lies of the week. The idea for the counterpropaganda series was that of Sue Taylor White of Freedom House; her husband, Paul White, the first director of CBS News, produced and directed the program.

After the war, as its website states, "Freedom House took up the struggle against the other twentieth century totalitarian threat, Communism.... The organization's leadership was convinced that the spread of democracy would be the best weapon against totalitarian ideologies." Freedom House supported the Marshall Plan and the establishment of NATO.

Freedom House also states that it was highly critical of McCarthyism. During the 1950s and 1960s, it supported the U.S. civil rights movement and its leadership included several prominent civil rights activists. It supported Andrei Sakharov, other Soviet dissidents, and the Solidarity movement in Poland. Freedom House assisted the post-Communist societies in the establishment of independent media, non-governmental think tanks, and the core institutions of electoral politics.

The organization describes itself currently as a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Freedom House states that it:

has vigorously opposed dictatorships in Central America and Chile, apartheid in South Africa, the suppression of the Prague Spring, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda, and the brutal violation of human rights in Cuba, Burma, the People's Republic of China, and Iraq. It has championed the rights of democratic activists, religious believers, trade unionists, journalists, and proponents of free markets.

In 1967, Freedom House absorbed Books USA, which had been created several years earlier by Edward R. Murrow, as a joint venture between the Peace Corps and the United States Information Service.

More recently, Freedom House has supported citizens involved in challenges to the existing regimes in Serbia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. The organization states, "From South Africa to Jordan, Kyrgyzstan to Indonesia, Freedom House has partnered with regional activists in bolstering civil society; worked to support women’s rights; sought justice for victims of torture; defended journalists and free expression advocates; and assisted those struggling to promote human rights in challenging political environments." Freedom House was critical of Saudi Arabia and Chile under Augusto Pinochet, classifying them as "Not Free". It was also strongly critical of the apartheid in South Africa and military dictatorships in Latin America.

In 2001 Freedom House had income of around $11m, increasing to over $26m in 2006. Much of the increase was due to an increase between 2004 and 2005 in US government federal funding, from $12m to $20m. Federal funding fell to around $10m in 2007, but still represented around 80% of Freedom House's budget. Diego Giannonea, an Italian political science professor, wrote that the preponderance of governmental funding was "unusual, especially when one considers that the organizations involved in the assessment and monitoring of human rights, democracy and freedom in the world refuse on principle—as a guarantee of their independence and credibility—government funding".