National Council of American-Soviet Friendship Records

The National Council of American-Soviet Friendship succeeded the National Council on Soviet Relations, founded in 1941. The NCSR grew out of the more overtly radical American-Soviet friendship movement of the 1930s, whose organizational center was the Friends of the Soviet Union founded in 1929. The Council, composed largely of professionals who were sympathetic to socialism, believed that the USSR and the United States should join together in their common fight against fascism. In 1942 the Council sponsored a well-attended Congress of American-Soviet Friendship which was effective in recruiting celebrity sponsors, speakers, and supporters such as Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, Henry Wallace, and William Green. The success of the Congress inspired Dr. Harry Grundfest, Dr. Corliss Lamont, George Marshall, Reverend William Howard Melish, and William Morris Jr. to pioneer a permanent organization the following year.

The NCASF enjoyed widespread success under the chairmanship of Corliss Lamont. Almost immediately, more than 30 local affiliates sprang up across the country, including the very active American-Russian Institute in San Francisco and the Los Angeles Society for Cultural Relations between the US and the USSR. The program of the NCASF emphasized cultural interchange and education as a means of strengthening the bonds of understanding between the American and Soviet people. The Council set up special committees, such as an Architects Committee, a Committee on Education, a Women's Committee, and a Committee on the Arts. These committees sponsored various conferences and exhibits, such as the American-Soviet War Exhibit, shown at the Museum of Science and Industry in 1943 in New York City, and an exhibit of Soviet Architecture and American Housing and Planning. The Council also sponsored an exhibit of paintings by Soviet children at the Museum of Modern Art and an exhibit entitled "Soviet Artists and the War," held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the mid-to-late 1940s, the Council held annual mass rallies in Madison Square Garden.

In 1945, Reverend Richard Morford became the Executive Director of the National Council, and remained in that capacity until 1981. Beginning in 1945, the radical post-war shift in American foreign policy brought the Council under increasing attack. In 1946, the House Un-American Activities Committee began a formal investigation of the National Council, and Lamont and Morford were cited for contempt of Congress. In 1947, the NCASF was indicted for failure to register with the Subversive Activities Control Board. In 1950, Morford was again charged with contempt of Congress and spent three months in jail. In 1951, the Supreme Court ruled that the Attorney General acted arbitrarily and illegally by placing the Council on the List of Subversive Organizations. Three years later, the Subversive Activities Control Board again declared the Council a "Communist Front", and the Council initiated proceedings against the SACB. During this period, the number of local affiliates shrank to three. In 1989, the Council again had to resume legal defense when the NCASF's executive director, Reverend Alan Thomson, was indicted by the federal government for bringing funds from the Soviet Union into the United States.

The Council has consistently denied accusations that it is a pro-Soviet organization, while claiming to be non-partisan. Some prominent leaders and members, such as Rockwell Kent and Elizabeth Moos, opposed the Council taking political positions in any matter. However, the Council has asserted its political outlook on a number of issues, opposing the 1961 US-sponsored invasion of Cuba and the Vietnam War. The Council also actively supported broader-based US movements for disarmament. With the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Board of Directors was bitterly divided, since Richard Morford condemned the action of the Soviet government. The political perspective of the NCASF was a varied mix of left-oriented politics: leaders, associates, and rank and file members held both pacifist and communist viewpoints. Throughout the Council's history, progressive religious leaders and churches have strongly supported the work of the Council. In the 1980s, this base of support expanded with the Council's efforts to broaden the issues of American-Soviet cooperation.

Many of the Council's activities have been educational projects. The Council sponsored numerous conferences and lectures on American-Soviet Relations, such as two held in 1951 entitled "From Bombs and Death to Cooperation and Peace" and "Facts, not Fiction--The Soviet Union Today." The NCASF initiated other programs to counter American anti-Soviet propaganda, such as the 1986 protest of the American film, "Amerika." The NCASF issued numerous pamphlets and bibliographies about life in the Soviet Union, as well as information on American-Soviet relations. Some of the titles are "The Story of American-Soviet Relations," by Harry Ward, "Soviet Education Today and Tomorrow," by Elizabeth Moos, and "Lenin's Humanity," by Howard Parsons. The Council initiated widespread distribution of Soviet films and documentaries to their local affiliates and to schools.

The Council has sponsored a variety of cultural activities, such as a Russian Music and Dance Festival in 1959, the Moscow Art Theater in 1965, and a gospel concert in 1986. The Council organized testimonials for notable people involved in the cause of American-Soviet relations, such as a ninetieth birthday party for Harry Ward in 1963, a celebration in 1965 for Richard Morford's twentieth year as the Council's executive director, and a John Reed Centenary in 1987. These events satisfied the NCASF's program for cultural activities in addition to raising Council funds.

The Council believed that their most important project was to promote cultural exchange at the local level. Since the late 1940s, the Council arranged individual and group tours of students, workers, and professionals to the Soviet Union. Beginning around 1970, the Council arranged several "Goodwill Delegations," in which small groups of Russians would visit one of the NCASF's local affiliates. The Council sponsored American teenagers at Artek, a Soviet summer camp on the Black Sea, as well as American college students studying at the Pushkin Institute in Moscow.

Part of the Council's program of cultural exchange was centered on the NCASF-sponsored Campaign for a Peoples' Peace Treaty, a broad-based attempt to involve communities, churches, and schools in the cause of American-Soviet friendship and disarmament. The Campaign, which lasted from 1985 until 1989, initiated a "People's Appeal for Peace." This peace petition, circulated in the Soviet Union and the United States, was intended for presentation to Ronald Reagan and Mikail Gorbachev; the Peoples' Peace Treaty ended unsuccessfully in 1987, when Reagan refused to accept the petition. The Campaign for a Peoples' Peace Treaty also initiated a project to "pair" American cities with Soviet cities of similar population and other characteristics. The Council only had mild success with this endeavor, while other organizations, such as Sister Cities International, paired many major US cities with Soviet cities.

The success and prominence of the NCASF vacillated throughout its history, often depending on the larger international political climate. The Council never returned to its significance during and immediately following World War II, but has occasionally been revived by the growing peace and disarmament movement. Throughout the late 1960s the Council's support dwindled, its base of support remaining with the Old Left. The Council lost much of it's Jewish support in the New York metropolitan area as a result of the Soviet pro-Palestinian position in the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict.

Sequence of NCASF office holders: Chairmen

Corliss Lamont: 1943-1947Reverend William Howard Melish: 1947-1951John Kingsbury: 1949-1956Rockwell Kent: 1957-1971Reverend William Howard Melish: 1971-1978Ewart Guinier: 1979-1984John Cherveny: 1985-1987John Randolph: 1988-1991

Executive Directors

Edwin Smith: 1944-1945Reverend Richard Morford: 1946-1981Reverend Alan Thomson: 1981-1991Roy Kaufman: 1991