Gloria Steinem, Off our backs. (July 1975)

Off Our Backs

This story began when one of the editors of “Feminist Revolution” was discussing with an acquaintance the politics of Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine and its effects on the women’s liberation movement.

“Wait,” said her friend, “there’s something I think you ought to see.” She brought out a pamphlet which she had stumbled on a couple of years earlier in a Cambridge-area bookstore. At the time she knew Gloria Steinem only as a young, liberal journalist, and this pamphlet, with Steinem’s name on it, jarred sharply with that image.

The document, entitled “Report on the Vienna Youth Festival,” was published by a group called the Independent Research Service in 1960 and as a second edition in 1961. There was no author listed, only three officers of the Independent Research Service: Gloria M. Steinem, Director, and Leonard N. Bebchick and Dr. Paul E. Sigmund, Jr., both Executive Officers. The contents and origins of the pamphlet will be discussed further below. Here it is sufficient to say that our first reactions to it, like those of our friend, were uneasiness and fear at seeing what appeared to be Steinem’s name on a Cold War propaganda tract complete with individual political profiles on U.S. and foreign youth.

Some of us wondered about the group: was it really independent and possibly a sincere reflection of where a lot of people’s minds had been at in the fifties and early sixties? Others of us had already heard of the group, had previous knowledge or indirect experience of its activities, and had heard that it was CIA-connected. We went so far as to wonder if the Gloria M. Steinem listed on the pamphlet cover could possibly be the same Gloria Steinem who had been meteorically installed into her current position as leader of the movement through the efforts of the mass media.

Needless to say, the increasing recent reports of participation of the CIA in illegal domestic intelligence operations did nothing to quiet our uneasiness about what might be going on behind the scenes in American politics generally and in the women’s movement specifically. Members of our group began the preliminary research which eventually led to the publication of this article.

Our research has led us to some conclusions and still more questions. It soon became clear that Gloria M. Steinem of the disturbing pamphlet was the same Gloria M. Steinem who had suddenly joined the women’s liberation movement with so much hullabaloo. We also learned that the famous “Ramparts” exposure of 1967 of CIA subsidy of domestic groups had named the organization which produced the very pamphlet as a CIA front group.

We now have documentation that Gloria Steinem knowingly worked for this CIA-financed group on a fulltime basis for a period of at least three years (1959-62) as its founder and director; that her association with this lasted as late as 1968-69 when according to her own listing of “Who’s Who in America” she was still a member of the Independent Research Service’s Board of Directors; that she never disclosed this group was CIA financed until after the information was already exposed by “Ramparts” magazine and after the New York Times, in the wake of the “Ramparts” story, named her as co-founder; that, in a later New York Times interview she defended her own actions and those of the Independent Research Service, partly through the use of outright lies which will be discussed below; and that in the following years there has been a coverup of large portions of this aspect of her political history.

We have questions about Steinem's motives for entering the women's movement in 1969-70, so soon after her defense of the CIA and only a year after her Independent Research Service Board of Directorship. We are suspicious of her sudden rise to prominence as a "women's liberation leader" at a time when, unlike other prominent women's liberationists, she was active in no women's group, she had not written a feminist book, won a Congressional seat or played a superb game of tennis. In fact she was unknown to most women in the movement—or at best known to women readers of New York magazine as one of the sympathetic journalists.

The proof of Steinem's knowing association with a group financed by the CIA extends as late as 1968-69 and we feel it is important for women to be aware of this background, to analyze their own experiences with Ms. and to draw their own conclusions.

The creation of Ms. magazine has put Steinem in a strategic position in the women’s movement—a position from which feminist politics can be influenced, but also a position from which information can be and is being gathered on the personal and political activities of women all over the world.

It is possible that this story will be dismissed as just "dredging up the past." But 1969, the year Steinem entered the women's liberation movement, is very recent past. In addition, Steinem had a chance to tell her story earlier. During the 1967 CIA exposures there were those (former National Student Association officers, for example) who openly acknowledged and repudiated their CIA connections. Others, while forced to admit CIA financing, continued to cover up and rationalize their activities. Steinem was in the latter group.

We realize that raising these issues will draw lines in the women's movement. A letter to the editor in the July 1974 issue of Ms. complained of the CIA's sexist hiring policies; a vocational aptitude test given to women asked questions about make-up, cooking and sewing; women's tests had pink covers while men's were blue, etc. We think the issue goes much deeper. Women need a revolution and the CIA's job is to prevent revolutions.

The "Independent" Research Service was in fact totally dependent on the CIA. It was founded in response to the Communist World Youth Festivals held during the 1950's and 60's. Originally these festivals were all held in Communist countries but in 1959 the festival was slated to take place in neutral Vienna. Officially the U.S. State Dept. discouraged Americans from attending so as not to "lend dignity to the Festival." This, combined with the widespread fear among many in the U.S. of being associated with anything communist, was enough to ensure that most Americans would refrain from going, even if they were interested and could afford to. Some Americans went nevertheless. In the meantime, the CIA covertly set up the Independent Research Service to organize an anti-communist delegation and coach it on ways to disrupt the festival.

The intricate arrangement by which the CIA financed the Independent Research Service was revealed by Ramparts in March 1967. Money was first passed to five foundations: the Borden Trust, the Price Fund, the Edsel Fund, the Beacon Fund and the Kentfield Fund. From there it was channeled to the Independence Foundation which operated out of the offices of the well-known Boston law firm of Hale and Dorr. (Interestingly enough this is the same law firm which provided Joseph Welch as attorney for the Army in its 1954 confrontation with Joseph McCarthy and, more recently, James St. Clair as chief counsel for ex-President Nixon in the Watergate affair.) The Independence Foundation then made contributions directly to the National Student Association and other groups.

Why Gloria Steinem was chosen as the "founder" and director of this group is something of a mystery. George Abrams and Richard Medalee, two early organizers of the Independent Research Service, stated in a New Republic article of 5/11/59 that "Most of the sponsors’ have had considerable experience in domestic and international youth and student affairs." We don't know if Steinem had this kind of experience in her past.

We do know that she graduated from Smith and then received a Chester Bowles Asian Fellowship to the Universities of New Delhi and Calcutta, India, in 1956-58. All we know of her activities in India is the alleged publication of a book. “The Thousand Indias,” in 1957 (see recent Who’s Who in America listings). Attempts to locate this book in the New York Public Library and in current and past listings of the Cumulative Book Index, Books in Print and the Library of Congress listings were all unsuccessful. We were unable to verify its existence, let alone discover its contents or for whom it was published.

Steinem said in a February 21, 1967 interview in the New York Times that after spending two years in India she had become convinced American students should participate in the World Youth Festivals.

She talked to some former NSA officers who told her CIA money might be available to finance American participation in the upcoming Vienna Youth Festival. "Far from being shocked by this involvement, I was happy to find some liberals in government in those days who were farsighted and cared enough to get Americans of all political views to the Festival." She added that the group urged people with flexible, but non-communist views to attend. She did not explain what had convinced her to take an interest in the festivals in the first place, who put her in contact with the ex-NSA/CIA people or why they trusted her with then secret information on CIA financing of domestic groups.

In the New York Times interview Steinem was described as a full time Independent Research Service employee in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1959 until after the Helsinki Youth Festival in 1962. She gave a distorted picture of her activities, however.

She said the Independent Research Service concentrated on disseminating information about the festivals and urging non-Communists to go. Steinem said that most of the U.S. students sent to the festival did not know about the relationship with the intelligence agency. (The official line was that backing was provided by prominent Boston businessmen).

According to Steinem, all the group did at the two festivals was establish a newspaper, news bureau, cultural exhibits and jazz clubs. Its most important work, she said, was convincing youths from Asia, Africa and Latin America that there were some Americans who understood and cared about their situation. Steinem emphasized, "I was never asked to report on other Americans or assess foreign nationals I had met."

This is a serious lie.

The Report on the Vienna Youth Festival, published with her name on it as Director of the Independent Research Service, contains 13 pages devoted solely to biographies, political affiliations, and even pseudo-political analyses of individuals from all the countries participating in the festival.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, however, since this section of the Report is described as "excerpts" from a longer listing published by the International News Bureau in Vienna. Although we cannot be sure, it seems reasonable to assume that this is the same "news bureau" referred to by Steinem in the Times article as one of the creations of the Independent Research Service. The section states, "This list has been compiled from Festival documents and careful research by those who have observed the organizers in action."

Another function of the Independent Research Service seems to have been lying about who did what in Vienna. A comparison of what Steinem said in the Times article with the Independent Research Service publication reveals this. All the activities detailed by Steinem in the Times as having been set up by the Service—the various news and cultural presentations—are attributed in the Festival Report to local Viennese youth, as proof of their opposition to the Festival. As summed up by the Service: “...the Austrians, the many foreign students studying in Austria and the several international youth and student organizations with offices there offered delegates discussions and diversions which amounted to a free and diversified second Festival."

After dishonestly covering up the CIA control and funding of these activities, the Independent Research Service goes on to use its own supposed spontaneity and independence to criticize planned Festival activities: "Though small and spontaneous compared with the IPC's (the Festival's International Preparatory Committee's) mammoth and carefully planned affair, its freedom impressed many delegates more than the Communist-style Peace and Friendship for which they had been brought."

Similar "spontaneous" activities marked the 1962 World Youth Festival attended by the Independent Research Service in Helsinki. In addition to news and cultural events this Festival was marked by four nights of "spontaneous" rioting against the Festival during which 40 people were arrested. Newsweek, in its 8/13/62 issue remarked incredulously that "Pravda, of course, blamed the disturbance on well-financed CIA and FBI agents..."

In its efforts to represent "America" abroad—or at least to represent certain American interests—Independent Research Service activities were inextricably intertwined with the U.S. domestic political situation. One example is the group's publication in 1959 of a pamphlet called “A Review of Negro Segregation in the United States” (Steinem's name again appears on the inside cover, this time as Co-Director).

This pamphlet, written before many bloody years of the recent civil rights movement, concentrates on all the supposed advancements of black people in America. To quote, "...beyond the noisy clamor of those who would obstruct justice and fair play, no alert observer can be unaware of the concerted effort to rule out segregation from every aspect of American life (p.45)." The group concedes that some discrimination still does occur. This is because "...it is also self-perpetuating, in that the rejected group, through continued deprivation, is hardened in the very shortcomings, whether real or imaginary, that are given as reasons for discrimination in the first place" p. 2).

In other words, it continues not because of white interests and continuing violence and oppression, but because blacks actually have become inferior.

For example, low voter registration among Southern blacks did not occur because they were fired from their jobs, kept off voter registration lists in various ways, even killed, but because "...in many areas of the South there exists a profound apathy among Negroes toward this paramount responsibility of good citizenship" (p.22). (This denial of black oppression has an ideological parallel in Ms. magazine's rationale to explain away the continued oppression of women. The problem, they say, is that women have become inferior and apathetic.

The subsequent activities of the Independent Research Service and its original officers are not always easy to trace but certain patterns do emerge.

Leonard Bebchick, who had been an international affairs vice president of the NSA in 1953 before working for the Independent Research Service, went on to become a Washington lawyer who practiced before the Civil Aeronautics Board. But his association with the CIA had not ended. In 1965 he surfaced again as the person who arranged for the NSA's free 15-year lease on a capitol headquarters—paid for by the CIA via the earlier mentioned Independence Foundation (The New Republic, 3/4/67).

Paul Sigmund, the other Executive Officer left his teaching post at Harvard, where former students remember him for his part in opposing anti-war activities on campus, and became an Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton. He has since published on revolutionary ideologies in the Third World. His publisher, Praeger Books, was also exposed in 1967 as a recipient of CIA money. Steinem was still serving on the Independent Research Board of Directors until at least 1969, well after she had begun her journalism career.

The Independent Research Service was to come to public attention one more time. In 1967 it had been described by the New York Times as "largely inactive." But in 1968, while Steinem was still a director, it continued its attempts to surreptitiously influence the politics of international youth movements. Ramparts again broke the story in its September 1967 issue. Another World Youth Festival was being planned, this time in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Some letters, leaked from the files of a Norwegian anti-communist youth group, revealed that negotiations between that group—the Norwegian Young Socialist League—and two CIA fronts—the Independent Research Service and the Foundation for Youth and Student Affairs—were underway to finance activities at the Sofia festival.

The letters further revealed that the FYSA and the Independent Research Service had been funneling about $50,000 per year of CIA money to the anti-communist International Union of Socialist Youth (of which the Norwegian group was an affiliate) each year since 1957. With the publication of the Norwegian letters and the scandal they caused throughout Europe, all CIA plans for the Sofia festival had to be dropped.

A year later, in 1969-70, Gloria Steinem first began to publicly identify herself with the women's liberation movement. At this time also there was a change in the biographical information given in Who's Who in America (Who's Who sends data sheets to the subjects to furnish their own material). The 1968-69 edition, the earliest one in which she appeared, listed her as "Director, educational foundation, Independent Research Service, Cambridge, Mass., NYC, 1959-62, now member Board of Directors, Washington."

In 1970 this was shortened to "Director, educational foundation, Independent Research Service, Cambridge, Mass., NYC, 1959-60." Not only was her previous term of employment shortened to one year, but there was no mention of the much later Board of Directors association. The listing appears in its shortened in version in each successive edition of Who's Who. 

This was not Steinem's only attempt at rewriting history. A biographical blurb in the June 1973 issue of Ms. magazine itself, for example, goes even further, stating: "Gloria Steinem has been a free-lance writer all her professional life ... Ms. magazine is her first full-time, salaried job."

Some ex-CIA agents and associates have complained that their past involvement with the Agency made it difficult for them to find work afterwards. This was not the case with Steinem. Her career skyrocketed a year after the 1967 exposures. Much of the credit for this must go to Clay Felker, publisher of New York magazine.

Recently in the news for his acquisition of the “Village Voice,” Felker immediately fired its two remaining founders from their jobs as publisher and editor. Following this article are quotes from an interview with two Redstockings critical of Ms, magazine, which was part of an article assigned by the old “Voice” and bought but never printed by Felker’s Voice.

Felker was Steinem’s editor at “Esquire,” where her first free-lance pieces were published. Felker hired her as contributing editor to New York magazine in 1968 and booked publicity spots for her on radio talk shows. Felker put up the money for the Preview issue of Ms. in January, 1972, a large part of which appeared as a supplement to the 1971 year end issue of New York magazine.

In effect, it was Felker who made Steinem famous by giving her a platform from which to establish her women's liberation credentials. These facts are all part of the public record. What has not been widely known up to this time are the earlier political roots of the Steinem/Felker collaboration. Felker was with Steinem at the Helsinki Youth Festival, editing the English language newspaper put out by the CIA-financed delegation. A New York designer, Sam Antupit, was one participant in the delegation not "witty" to the CIA financing who worked with Felker there. He remembered Felker as knowing everything that was going on and walking around with an air of great importance.

The CIA's big mistake was not supplanting itself with private funds fast enough. —Gloria Steinem, New York Times February 21, 1967

In a recent television appearance Pat Carbine, formerly editor of McCall's when that magazine named Gloria Steinem "Woman of the Year" for 1971, and now publisher of Ms., remarked that the women's movement was currently in "Phase Two." The radicals had a part to play in getting things started, she explained, but the moderates were now in control. To the extent that this is true it represents the decision of the American establishment—the people in a position to choose who gets access to the press and the airwaves, who gets hired to the token women's jobs, who gets funding for their projects. In the case of Ms. there are two major sources of financing that we know of in addition to the help which was provided by Felker.

The first source was Katherine Graham, publisher-owner of the Washington Post and Newsweek, who bought $20,000 worth of stock before the first issue of Ms. was published. Graham was recently featured on Ms.'s cover as "the most powerful woman in America” October 1974. It may be more than coincidental that Newsweek was also the most enthusiastic mass circulation magazine promoting the Independent Research Service (see articles of 7/6/59, 8/10/59, 7/30/62 and 8/13/62) and later Gloria Steinem individually (see early article of 5/10/65 and cover story of 8/16/71).

The other major source of funds was Warner Communications, Inc., which purchased $1 million worth of stock after the preview issue of Ms. appeared. They took only 25% of the stock, though putting up virtually all the money. The Ms. editors acknowledged this was a little strange: "We are especially impressed they took the unusual position of becoming the major investor, but minority stockholder; thus providing all the money without demanding the decision vote in return." (Ms. Reader, p. 266).

Warner's chief executive officer, Steven J. Ross, started off in the funeral business and then went on to National Kinney Services which eventually merged with Warner. Warner Communications is now the owner of Warner Brothers movies and records and has large holdings in cable television, publishing, building maintenance and construction, parking lots and other companies. What possible interest could this mammoth conglomerate have in women's liberation that would lead them to agree to such unbusiness-like terms—relinquishing a controlling interest for $1 million worth of stock? William Sarnoff, chairman of the Warner publishing, was quoted in a New York magazine article of June 26, 1972 as saying, "We have every confidence that the magazine will be financially successful, and we support the philosophy reflected in the editorial viewpoints."

Warner is also the owner of National Periodical Publications, which publishes Wonder Woman comic books. Warner bought into Ms. in May 1972. In July 1972 the first regular issue of Ms. appeared on the stands featuring a cover on Wonder Woman as a feminist heroine.

The story announced that Wonder Woman comic books, having been in a decline since the 1940's, would be reborn in 1973 with a new woman editor. The following January Ms. announced in a report to its readers that the magazine would be publishing a book on Wonder Woman: "It is the first Ms. book. (In fact, we hadn't planned to do one so soon; it just grew out of reader queries about how to find these comics of the l940‘s, when Wonder Woman was in her Golden Age)."

This reveals how dishonest Ms. is with its readers. But it must also be seen as an area in which commercial interests and politics coincide. Wonder Woman, after all, was an army intelligence officer (Ms. July 1972, p. 52) working "For America, the last citadel of democracy, and of equal rights for women." In her 1973 form she was to become more of a pacifist, a general line pushed by Ms. in talking about women's "cultural superiority." In both her old and new forms Wonder Woman's guiding motive is "Patriotism," i.e., protecting the interests of the American powers-that-be.

Wonder Woman also reflects the anti-people attitude of the "liberal feminists" and matriarchists who look to mythical and supernatural heroines and "models" while ignoring or denigrating the achievements and struggles of down-to-earth women. It leads to the "liberated woman" individualist line that denies the need for a movement, and implies that when women don't make it, it's their own fault.

Warner produced a television movie about Wonder Woman which was shown twice in 1974. In that movie Diana Prince, the Amazon Princess, was brought from her matriarchal Paradise Island to safeguard patriarchal civilization by rescuing an international network of (male) spies from a plot against their lives. (In the course of researching this article, we noticed a pattern of alliances of matriarchists with the ruling elite. Elizabeth Gould Davis, for example, author of the matriarchists' bible “The First Sex,” was the sister of ITT lobbyist Dita Beard who spent a long time in the hospital after the discovery of an internal memo she wrote detailing a payoff to the Nixon administration in return for dropping anti-trust charges against ITT. Davis herself was a Navy Intelligence officer for six years and later an "abstracter and bibliographer for the federal government in Washington." Which branch of the government is left unspecified in her biographies. See, for example, her letter to Prime Time, September 1974.)

Ms. characteristically ignores what it sees as the "ordinary woman," thus working against the development of a truly mass women's movement. This is a selling point that Ms. uses to attract advertisers. From a Ms. ad in the New York Times of March 19, 1974 "...(a standard marketing survey) shows the Ms. audience of 1,400,000 as having the educations, living in higher income households, holding more managerial/professional jobs than any other women's magazine readers, and 54% of them are between 18 and 34."

Ms.'s advertising policies are important as an indicator of the magazine's financial and political backing, especially in view of the frequently articulated Ms. policy of being selective in which ads will be accepted. Because of this policy an ad in Ms. amounts to an endorsement. Generally speaking, "traditional" women's advertising (cosmetics, fashion, etc.) does not appear very often and blatantly sexist ads for any kind of product are turned away. However, public relations and job recruitment ads for large corporations are viewed more kindly. One of Ms.'s most regular advertisers is International Telephone and Telegraph. Also appearing with non-product advertising have been Ortho Pharmaceuticals, Exxon Oil, Chemical Bank, Bell Telephone, Singer Aerospace, Shearson-Hamil1 stockbrokers, Gulf and Western Oil and Merrill-Lynch stockbrokers.

Ms. runs a special "Human Development" section every month which consists of advertisements for careers with companies like these. In September 1973 a letter from Amy Swerdlow of Women's Strike for Peace questioned what recruiting women for ITT had to do with human development. "Let's have a Ms. story on all ITT activities around the world. Then let the reader decide what talented women will find at ITT headquarters," she wrote. The Ms. editors replied that they could not be too selective about job ads in view of all the women who are unemployed or on welfare. This would seem to be a very thin explanation if one thinks about the likelihood of welfare mothers being hired for ITT careers. Anyway, Ms.'s advertising pitch makes clear that these are not the women who will be reading the magazine and its "Human Development" section.

Ms. has also had some help from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which provided a grant for the Ms. television special "Woman Alive." The program was produced by KERA-TV (Dallas/Fort Worth). The filming of "Woman Alive" illustrated the conflict over whether Ms. is a political or a commercial enterprise. For example, a New York Times article about the program June 16, 1974 stated, "Anonymity for the Ms. staff (Steinem is named, but not identified with the magazine) was also encouraged by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where it was feared that mention of Ms. in any way other than the final shared credit with KERA-TV would constitute an endorsement for a commercial product."

This conflict over whether Ms, is a commercial or political venture has caused a lot of people confusion. It has led women to submit political information about themselves which they would not have sent a magazine publishing simply for profit. It has been used to explain Ms.'s lack of a mass readership. It has been used to explain their limited advertising pages—though Ms. does go out of its way to solicit advertising. It has led women writers to expect better treatment from Ms. than from other magazines, when in fact the treatment has often been worse (see quotes from Village Voice interview.)

In addition to these groups, there is another operation with a financial link to Ms. magazine. The annual U.S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation of Ms. lists a further stockholder, the PST Group, Inc. We were able to find only sketchy information about this organization. PST stands for Phillips Stewart Associates and until this year, was listed in the Manhattan Yellow Pages under "Data Processing Services" and "Marketing Consultants." We found no listing of this group in standard references such as the Consultants and Consulting Organizations Directory, the Datamation Industry Directory, the Official Directory of Data Processing or Who's Who in Consulting. We did find one short New York Times article of November 9, 1969 stating that Phillips Stewart Turner had introduced a program for translating the computer language BASIC into FORTRAN.

The PST offices until recently were located on the 3rd floor of 370 Lexington Avenue, in New York, down the corridor from the offices of Ms. (They are now on the 22nd floor.) Although its offices were at that time listed in the building's lobby directory under the name of the PST Group, Inc., upstairs the names on the doors were "Hospital Data Services" and SAMA, Process Measurement Control Section." (Phone numbers are the same, ruling out the possibility that these are just new tenants.) SAMA, we have learned, stands for Scientific Apparatus Makers Association. It is a Washington-based organization, according to the 1973 Encyclopedia of Associations, of "Manufacturers and distributors of industrial, optical, nuclear recorder controller instruments, scientific apparatus and laboratory equipment. Encourages research and develops product standards, complies industry statistics. Conducts market research and sales promotion; carries out government relations activities."

We are wondering whether all this curious financing is connected to the lesson Gloria Steinem said she learned in 1967: "The CIA's big mistake was not supplanting itself with private funds fast enough." The Ms. editors should come forward with more information about their unusual stockholders.

As a minimum interpretation, Ms. owes its existence to the highest ranks of corporate America. But one could still question whether financial support implies political influence. To answer that question would require a detailed political analysis of Ms. contents which is beyond the scope of this article. However, some lines of inquiry can be suggested. Why would Ms. do a whole issue (June '73) on women and money and never mention the effects, let alone the causes, of the economic crisis which has been devastating women's household budgets and employment chances—instead substituting such articles as "How the Small (Very Small) Investor Can Make the System Work for Her (For A Change)" or "People’s Money Hang-ups"? Why is Clairol the enemy, but not also ITT?

Phase Two of the women's movement, as described by Pat Carbine and exemplified in Ms. magazine, seeks to cover up the historic connection between feminism and radicalism. In order to avoid the latter it must distort the former beyond all recognition. Why is it Ms. publishes no articles on forced childbearing and its economic function in society, for example, but does tell you how to bring up your kids with its "Stories for Free Children"? Why is more space devoted to "Etiquette for Humans" and "Populist Mechanics" than to a root analysis of women's unpaid and/or exploited labor which as Susan B. Anthony reminded us, has kept society's wheels turning for centuries? What is the political function of Ms.'s popular image as the magazine of the "liberated woman"? The very reason for the resurgence of the modern women's liberation movement, after all, was the realization that emancipation was a myth, that women were not liberated.

That this "liberated woman" approach is pushed by the American establishment is illustrated by the following example involving the government itself: a feminist writer and activist gave Ms. permission to reprint in an early issue a short article she had written sometime earlier. Her article appeared as part of a longer story on the same subject, but under separate copyright. About a year later she received a phone call from a man who identified himself as representing the U.S. Information Agency. The USIA was planning to publish the entire Ms. article as part of a booklet to be distributed “behind the Iron Curtain.” At the last minute they had noticed her separate copyright and were now requesting reprint permission. The woman refused.

In the discussion that followed the USIA man revealed that the booklet would cover a number of topics related to American society, and that there would be only one other article on the subject of women’s liberation—the McCall's article naming Gloria Steinem as Woman of the Year 1971. The purpose of including these two articles, he said, was to show how liberated American women are. The woman, who continued to refuse reprint permission, reminded him that the point of the women's liberation movement is that American women are oppressed, not liberated.

Looked at solely from an ideological point of view it might not seem to matter whether Gloria Steinem has continued her association with the CIA while editor of Ms. magazine. Both Ms. and the CIA could be viewed as beholden to the same power elite whether they were working separately or together. But on another level it is very important that this question be cleared up. A great deal of information flows into the Ms. offices constantly.

The "Gazette," a regular feature of news of the women's movement, requests that readers send in stories about their own and other women's activities. Incidents have come to our attention of women who were asked to write overviews for Ms. on various aspects of the women's movement. These articles 'were submitted but were drastically cut—never published—although lots of issue space was filled up with reprints from books already having a mass distribution. Ms. has the names of individuals and groups mentioned in this data-rich material. The rest of us don't, with the result that we are left isolated and in the dark.

The Women's Action Alliance, a group which was founded by Gloria Steinem in 1971, is located in the same building as Ms. Despite its name, the WAA is not involved in action, but in information gathering. Although it described itself in a 1974 mailing as "impoverished,” it had already received a $20,000 grant from the Rockefeller Family Fund for the establishment of a "national clearinghouse information and referral service" on the women's movement. Contacts to be used for this project, according to the Foundation Grants Index for that year, included "access to key women leaders, information files assembled by outside sources and a close working relationship with the magazine Ms." Other grants to the "impoverished" Women's Action Alliance have included:

Carnegie Corporation: $51,500

Sachem Fund: $23,000

Carol Buttenweiser (Loeb) Foundation: $5,000

Area Foundation: $12,000

Chase Manhattan Bank Foundation(Rockefeller): $5,000

The National Black Feminist Organization shares an office with the Women's Action Alliance. Presumably Gloria Steinem has access to their files, too. In addition, she has had a finger in every pie, from domestic workers' organizing to stewardesses' conventions; from women's labor conferences to simultaneous work in the McGovern and Chisholm presidential campaigns (prompting Shirley Chisholm to finally insist that Steinem decide who she was working for).

It is necessary that people with access to this much information be trustworthy and that they actually be using the information to further the interests of the movement. Gloria Steinem has a history of gathering information for the Central Intelligence Agency. She has been dishonest in the past about this and is still covering it up. She has therefore not earned the trust her present position requires.

"'I used to think the CIA was some horrible fascist conspiracy," a former ‘witting’ (complicit) student leader said last week. 'Then I discovered it was a little treasure trove of liberalism, the one refuge for liberals during the McCarthy period'." — The New Republic March 4, 1967 p.5

One of the things that most angered conservatives during the 1967 CIA exposures was the fact that most of the recipients of secret CIA funding were seemingly left-wing groups. Both the conservatives and the student quoted above failed to acknowledge that the CIA will use whatever works to accomplish its objective of preventing radical change; that anti-communist Socialist groups may work in some situations while assassinations are resorted to in others. It has been widely recognized that one major CIA strategy is to create or support parallel organizations which provide alternatives to radicalism and yet appear progressive enough to appease dissatisfied elements of the society.

John D. Rockefeller III, in his book “The Second American Revolution,” described the same policy of replacing the revolutionaries in order to reshape the politics of the "revolution in another way.” He said, "A humanistic revolution in the United States is not going to be 'won' by youth and the blacks. Their primary role has been to initiate it and to provide the pressure for its maintenance. The revolution will succeed only through growing involvement of the moderates... those who, for the most part, have 'made it' in this society, at whatever level of personal competence." (Book by a Rockefeller Scores Materialism, New York Times, February 26, 1973)

If all this sounds suspiciously like Pat Carbine's "Phase Two" of the women's liberation movement, it is because the politics are identical. Gloria Steinem's progression from the Independent Research Service to Ms. magazine would be perfectly logical.

One of the ways Ms. has carried out this policy of replacing the original radicals is by either ignoring or rewriting the history of the women's liberation movement. Ms. represents itself as the movement, as if nothing else had existed before it came along: "I think of us (Ms.) as a kind of connective tissue for women all across this country who felt isolated until we came along and let them know they were not alone..." (Gloria Steinem, Ms vs. Cosmo, New York Times, August 11, 1974).

When feminist pioneers cannot be ignored, Ms. tries to undercut their contributions. This is the explanation for the Ms. editors' bizarre statement in an introduction to an interview with Simone de Beauvoir that the author of “The Second Sex,” whose monumental exposure of male supremacy predated and laid the basis for the modern organized movement, was now about to "join women at last." The cover headline for this article was "New Feminist: Simone de Beauvoir." (Ms. July, 1972)

Ms. has also published a "Guide to Consciousness-Raising" without mentioning or consulting the originators of consciousness-raising, and changing the definition of the term in the process. They now present themselves to women as the "experts" in consciousness-raising. There are numerous other examples of Ms. attempting to replace the radicals and thus breaking the connection between women and the authentic movement.

The women's liberation movement started out radical and militant. For this it came under constant attack from the powers-that-be. The most frequent form of this attack was to say that this radicalism was alienating women, turning women off. In fact, radicalism turned women on and in the process created a mass movement. Direct attack was not working; an alternative had to be created.

An alternative to radical feminism now exists, and Ms. is its house organ. In the past few years we've had a chance to feel the effects of that situation, many of which are described elsewhere in this journal. Researching this article gave us a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes interest groups which have been responsible for those effects. The interest groups must be brought into the full light of day if the authentic women's liberation movement is to emerge from its current eclipse.