The longtime head of the NED, Carl Gershman, has his roots in an odd little variation of the old Socialist Party known as Social Democrats USA. Thirty years ago, this rightwing socialist splinter had its offices in the United Federation of Teachers building in NYC where it was a pet project of the UFT president Al Shanker, who from his youth identified as an anti-communist socialist. Like most of the AFL-CIO leadership, he strongly supported the Viet Nam War and CIA /AFL-CIO efforts to undermine leftist unions in Latin America. When Gershman’s other mentor, the rightwing Democrat Jeane Kirkpatrick was appointed UN ambassador by Reagan, she promoted the idea of the NED with the then young Gershman to head it. And then for decades, the organization funneled US government money into destabilizing regimes and political parties thought hostile to US interests. However, the NED under this peculiar kind of socialist never lost sight of human rights and never actively promoted police states or outright dictatorships.
When Hilary Clinton took over the State Department, I am sure she found the NED to be a natural fit for her own ideology. With Hillary’s and her aide Victoria Nuland’s support, Gershman and his organization played a major role in destabilizing the Yanukovich presidency in Ukraine, thereby upsetting Paul Manafort’s hopes and of course Putin’s dreams of a virtual satellite state on his southern border. Hence, it is no surprise that Trump now wants to destroy an organization which Putin detests. This is why I hesitate to celebrate the passing of the NED, no matter how negative much of its record has been. Even in Ukraine, few would deny that the regime change engineered by the NED has done much to shore up the country’s independence.
The author, in my view, is wrong. Trump is never right, not even in this case.