6.3 KiB
| title | date | status | summary | entities | tags | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funding Conduit | 2026-10-26 | published | A November 1968 CIA Central Cover Staff memorandum lists John Hay Whitney's charitable trust as a 'Funding conduit under Project QKOPERA,' the designation it gives the Congress for Cultural Freedom. |
|
Funding Conduit
On February 25, 1967 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "a charitable trust established by John Hay Whitney received $325,000 in 1964 and 1965 from the Granary Fund of Boston, used by the Central Intelligence Agency to channel money from front organizations to various organizations here and abroad." The schedule the Granary Fund filed with the Massachusetts attorney general showed $225,000 paid to the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes in 1964 and $100,000 in 1965. Walter N. Thayer, head of the Whitney communications corporation, issued a statement in Whitney's name: "The trust which I established Dec. 29, 1958, for charitable purposes has operated since that date."1 David Wise and Thomas B. Ross wrote the same year that the trust was "financed in part by the Granary Fund, the CIA conduit."2
In November 1968 Charles Katek, Chief of the CIA's Central Cover Staff, sent the Deputy Director for Plans a memorandum on the "Scope and Possible Damage of New Allegations by Ramparts Magazine." Ramparts had sent the Internal Revenue Service a list of 145 tax-exempt organizations it suspected of CIA funding. The memorandum's annex of terminated covert funding conduits lists the Granary Fund as a Central Cover Staff proprietary (LPSIPHON/7). It lists "Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes, John Hay" twice, as Ramparts items 141 and 142, each time as a "Funding conduit under Project QKOPERA (LPCORSET/68)." The same memorandum gives QKOPERA as the project designation for the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and lists the Farfield Foundation as a "Funding conduit for CCF."3 In 1985 the CIA answered a 1980 request for records on "the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes and the Granary Fund." It reported two documents, dated December 10, 1968 and January 23, 1969, and withheld both in full.4
When Forum World Features began selling articles from London in 1966, its owner of record was Whitney, according to officials quoted by the Washington Post in 1975. An internal CIA memorandum of about 1968, which the Post quoted from Time Out, says the service was begun in January 1966 from the residue of Forum Service, an activity of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Richard Mellon Scaife replaced Whitney early in 1973, and a Whitney spokesman said he had "no comment on the subject."5 Brian Crozier, the service's president, later wrote that in the spring of 1965 John Hunt told him Whitney had agreed to take over the service, and printed a letter of June 10, 1965 from Hunt saying that Whitney "tentatively plans to put about $100,000 a year into Forum Features."6
William Harding Jackson was managing director of J. H. Whitney & Co. when he wrote to Director of Central Intelligence Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter on the firm's letterhead on May 29, 1947: "You need only call upon me and I shall do anything within my power to be of assistance."7 He became Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in October 1950.8 The CIA's history of the Walter Bedell Smith years names Alexander Standish, "a partner in J. H. Whitney & Company," among the original Princeton Consultants of the Board of National Estimates.9 On March 26, 1969 Henry A. Kissinger wrote to Peter Flanigan about Whitney's interest in the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board: "You should know that this has twice been raised with the President and rejected both times."10
-
"CIA Link to Charity Funds," San Francisco Chronicle, February 25, 1967 (CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP75-00149R000800060024-5). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000800060024-5 ↩︎
-
David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Espionage Establishment (Random House, 1967), p. 144. ↩︎
-
Charles Katek, Chief, Central Cover Staff, memorandum for the Deputy Director for Plans, "Indications of the Scope and Possible Damage of New Allegations by Ramparts Magazine," November 1968, with annexes (JFK Assassination Records, 2025 release, 104-10059-10026). https://archive.org/details/JFK-Assassination-Records-2025-Batch01-02 ↩︎
-
Central Intelligence Agency, Information and Privacy Coordinator, letter of May 28, 1985 responding to the Freedom of Information Act request of January 11, 1980 (CIA-RDP87B00858R000500640014-6). https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP87B00858R000500640014-6 ↩︎
-
Bernard D. Nossiter, "CIA News Service," The Washington Post, July 3, 1975, p. A26. https://archive.org/details/nsia-CIAForumWorldFeatures ↩︎
-
Brian Crozier, reply to the Guardian, December 1, 1976, with printed correspondence of John Hunt (June 10, 1965). https://archive.org/details/crozier-replies-to-gaurdian-by-peter-chippendale-martin-walker-the-gaurdian-december-1-1976-pp.-1-9 ↩︎
-
William H. Jackson to Rear Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter, May 29, 1947, on J. H. Whitney & Co. letterhead (CIA-RDP80B01676R004000040034-9). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004000040034-9 ↩︎
-
The Pulse, October 15, 1950 (employee bulletin of The New York Hospital), notice of Jackson's appointment as Deputy Director. https://archive.org/details/pulse1519newy_6 ↩︎
-
Central Intelligence Agency, "General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950 to February 1953," vol. III (CREST document 00669377), passage on the Board of National Estimates and the Princeton Consultants. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00669377 ↩︎
-
Henry A. Kissinger to Peter Flanigan, memorandum of March 26, 1969, "Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, John Hay Whitney" (LOC-HAK-1-2-69-2). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-loc-hak-1-2-69-2 ↩︎