What was the Ford Foundation's relationship with the CIA?

Описание: In 1947, Henry Ford Sr died, with control of the family passing to his grandson, Henry Ford II. Also part of the deal was the Ford Foundation, which now owned the vast majority of the Ford Motor Company's shares. From a minor player in the philanthropic world to the world's most powerful charity, the Ford Foundation would become intertwined with the objectives of the Central Intelligence Agency, including in America's domestic politics.

Unlike the rival Federal Bureau of Investigation, the CIA was relatively liberal. Whereas FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was a defender of established power structures like Jim Crow in the South or machine politics in the North, the CIA was aligned with reformists from more elite backgrounds. This ideological conflict had seen the two clash behind the scenes of the early Cold War, leading to the McCarthyite period of American history. Alleging Communist subversion at the CIA, the McCarthyites had taken aim at, among other initiatives, the agency's support for the abstract expressionist art movement. Afterwards, as the conflict wore down, ​the CIA moved to create a network of Non-Governmental Organisations that would covertly push forward their agenda. Some of these were established outright by the Agency, like the Congress for Cultural Freedom, while others were simply drawn into their orbit, such as the Ford Foundation.

In 1966, former National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy became President of the Ford Foundation. By this point, the conflict between the FBI and the CIA had begun to heat up again, along with the related clashes over reform. With the FBI backing established organised crime groups, such as the American Mafia, the reformists reached out to newer street gangs, particularly those established by the African-Americans who had mass migrated to the cities after World War Two. Along with financing groups such as Chicago's Vice Lords, the Ford Foundation would provide an ideological justification through supporting the fledgling Black Power movement, culminating in an explosive showdown with the conservative forces around the end of the 1960s.

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