Carl Gershman

Carl Gershman
President of the National Endowment for Democracy
Incumbent
Assumed office 1984
Personal details
Born	July 20, 1943 (age 76) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Yale University (B.A.) Harvard Graduate School of Education (M.Ed.)

Carl Gershman (born July 20, 1943) is an American civil servant who has served as the President of the National Endowment for Democracy since its founding in 1984. Gershman previously served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council during the first term of the Reagan Administration.

Gershman was the Executive Director of the Social Democrats, USA from 1975 to 1980, having previously been an officer of the Young People's Socialist League. From 1965 to 1967, he served in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Volunteers in Service to America (now AmeriCorps VISTA). He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

Early life

On July 20, 1943, Carl Gershman was born in New York City. In 1961, he graduated magna cum laude from Horace Mann Preparatory School of Riverdale in The Bronx. As an undergraduate at Yale University, he was active in the Yale Civil Rights Council, and volunteered in Mississippi and Alabama. In 1965 he graduated magna cum laude from Yale, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and upon graduation was inducted into the honorary society Phi Beta Kappa. From 1965 to 1967, he served in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Volunteers in Service to America, which was a domestic version of the Peace Corps. In 1968 he graduated with a Master of Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Career

Early years

In 1968, he worked in the research department of B'nai B'rith. From 1969 to 1971, he was Research Director at the A. Philip Randolph Institute, where he assisted its director, Bayard Rustin.

Youth Committee for Peace in the Middle East (1969-1974)

From 1969 to 1974, Gershman successively served as Director of Research, Co-Chairman, and Executive Director of the Youth Committee for Peace in the Middle East, and edited its magazine Crossroads.

In 1972 he served on the Governing Council of the American Jewish Committee.

In 1972 he and Irving Howe edited a collection, Israel, the Arabs and the Middle East. Gershman served on the Editorial Board of Dissent, which was edited by Howe.

American social democracy: YPSL and SDUSA (1974-1980)

See also: Social Democrats, USA; Young People's Socialist League (1907); Socialist Party of America; and Social democracy

In a 2006 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Gershman said, "I have to confess that, in my early youth, I was a kind of a social democrat of sorts; I'm now really a democrat; I'm non-partisan." From 1970–1974, Carl Gershman was a national leader of the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), the youth section of the Socialist Party of America; he served as Vice Chairman, Co-Chairman, and then Chairman of YPSL. Acting as YPSL's Vice Chairman at its 1972 December Conference, he wrote a thirteen-page, singly spaced, international-affairs document which called for the Cuba's Castro regime to stop funding guerrilla movements and also for its "loosening the bonds" of repression; it was approved and an alternative document calling for the United States to recognize Cuba's government was defeated. YPSL criticized the "New Politics" led by George McGovern, which had lost 49 of 50 states to Richard Nixon in the 1972 election.

At the Socialist Party USA Convention in December 1972, he introduced the international program, which was approved by a two to one vote; the losing alternative, proposed by Michael Harrington, called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, while the majority resolution called for a negotiated peace settlement. At this convention, the Socialist Party changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34. Harrington resigned from SDUSA and founded the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) in 1973. In 1975, Gershman published a monograph on the foreign policy of the American labor movement.

Gershman became a leader of SDUSA. From 1975 to January 1980, Gershman served as the Executive Director of SDUSA. In 1980, he debated Michael Harrington on the topic of foreign policy.

United Nations Committee on Human Rights (1981-1984)

Gershman served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council during the first term of the Reagan Administration.

National Endowment for Democracy (1984-present)

Carl Gershman has served as the President of the National Endowment for Democracy since 1984. In a 2006 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Gershman said

"I'm non-partisan; I try to bring Democrats and Republicans together in the United States, which is not that easy because we're very divided politically, today. And also, people from the business community and the trade union movement and intellectuals, and so forth, and try and bring people together around a common democratic faith and philosophy."

In a 1982 speech at the Palace of Westminster, President Ronald Reagan proposed an initiative "to foster the infrastructure of democracy--the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities." The U.S. government, through USAID (United States Agency for International Development), contracted The American Political Foundation to study democracy promotion, which became known as "The Democracy Program." The Program recommended the creation of a bipartisan, private, non-profit corporation to be known as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED, though non-governmental, would be funded primarily through annual appropriations from the U.S. government and subject to congressional oversight.

NED was established in 1983 by an act of Congress. The House Foreign Affairs Committee proposed legislation to provide initial funding of $31.3 million for NED as part of the State Department Authorization Act (H.R. 2915). Included in the legislation was $13.8 million for the Free Trade Union Institute, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO (much of which went to support the Polish labor union, Solidarity), $2.5 million for an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and $5 million each for two party institutes. The conference report on H.R. 2915 was adopted by the House on November 17, 1983 and the Senate the following day. On November 18, 1983, articles of incorporation were filed in the District of Columbia to establish the National Endowment for Democracy as a nonprofit organization.

NED is structured to act as a grant-making foundation, distributing funds to private non-governmental organizations for the purpose of promoting democracy abroad. Approximately half of NED's funding is allocated annually to four main U.S. organizations: the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), and the International Republican Institute (IRI). The other half of NED's funding is awarded annually to hundreds of non-governmental organizations based abroad which apply for support.

Publications

• Gershman, Carl (December 1975), The foreign policy of American labor, SAGE policy papers, vol. 3, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington D.C. (Washington Papers 29), SAGE Publications, pp. 1–82, ISBN 978-0-8039-0572-6 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (1978), Capitalism, socialism, and democracy, SD Papers, vol. 1, discussions also by Sidney Hook, Bayard Rustin, and Penn Kemble, New York: Social Democrats, USA, pp. 7–9, Selected Reprints from Commentary (April 1978) pp. 29–71 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rustin, Bayard; Gershman, Carl (1978). Africa, Soviet imperialism and the retreat of American power. SD papers. Vol. 2. New York: Social Democrats, USA. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (May 1978). "After the dominoes fell". Commentary. SD papers. 3. New York: Social Democrats, USA: 89–93. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (1978). The world according to Andrew Young. SD papers. Vol. 4. New York: Social Democrats, USA. Reprinted from Commentary (August 1978). {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (1979). Selling them the rope: Business and the Soviets. SD papers. Vol. 6. New York: Social Democrats, USA. Reprinted from Commentary (April 1979). {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (November 3, 1980). "Totalitarian menace (Controversies: Detente and the left after Afghanistan)". Society. 18 (1). New York: Transactions (purchased by Springer): 9–15. doi:10.1007/BF02694835. ISSN 0147-2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Gershman, Carl (1993), "The polity: Commentary", in Freedman, Rita (ed.), Does America need a social democratic movement?, Following commentary by Jim Chapin (pp. 86–89) on panel presentations by Seymour Martin Lipset (pp. 71–75), Will Marshall (pp. 76–81), and Fred Siegel (pp. 81–86), chaired by Ronald Radosh (p. 85), Washington, DC: Social Democrats, USA, pp. 89–93, Gershman discusses American social democracy as a form of radical-democratic Americanism, which has been properly inspired more by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Woodrow Wilson than by Karl Marx and Eduard Bernstein. {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (December 12, 2003), A democracy strategy for the Middle East, National Endowment for Democracy {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl; Gutierrez, Orlando (January 2009). "Ferment in civil society (Can Cuba change?)" (PDF). Journal of Democracy. 20 (1): 36–54. doi:10.1353/jod.0.0051. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 18, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (August 29, 2011), Remarks by Carl Gershman at a photo exhibition commemorating the 30th anniversary of the founding of Solidarity (The phenomenon of Solidarity: Pictures from the history of Poland, 1980-1981; Woodrow Wilson Center), Washington D.C.: National Endowment for Democracy {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Awards

• The Polish government awarded the Order of the Knight's Cross
• award from Romania
• from the Chinese Education Democracy Foundation
• Light of Truth Award from the International Campaign for Tibet
• President's Award from George Washington University
• In 2019, the government of the Taiwanese Republic of China awarded Gershman the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon

See also

• National Endowment for Democracy
• Reagan Administration
• Social Democrats
• AFL–CIO Department of International Affairs
• Freedom House
• Kahn, Tom
• Kemble, Penn
• Kirkpatrick, Jeane
• World Movement for Democracy

References

• Bernstein, Carl (February 24, 1992). "The holy alliance: Ronald Reagan and John Paul II; How Reagan and the Pope conspired to assist Poland's Solidarity movement and hasten the demise of Communism (Cover story)". Time (U.S. ed.): 28–35. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Domber, Gregory F. (2008), Supporting the revolution: America, democracy, and the end of the Cold War in Poland, 1981–1989 (Ph.D. dissertation (September 12, 2007), George Washington University), pp. 1–506, ISBN 978-0-549-38516-5, Winner of the "2009 Betty M. Unterberger Prize for Best Dissertation on United States Foreign Policy from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations" {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Revised and incorporated in Domber, Gregory F. (2014). Empowering Revolution: America, Poland, and the End of the Cold War. The New Cold War History. University of North Carolina Press books. ISBN 9781469618517. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gershman, Carl (November 3, 1980). "Totalitarian menace (Controversies: Detente and the left after Afghanistan)". Society. 18 (1). New York: Transactions (purchased by Springer): 9–15. doi:10.1007/BF02694835. ISSN 0147-2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Harrington, Michael (November 3, 1980). "Nuclear threat (Controversies: Detente and the left after Afghanistan)". Society. 18 (1). New York: Transactions (purchased by Springer): 16–21. doi:10.1007/BF02694836. ISSN 0147-2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lipset, Seymour Martin (July 4, 1988). "Neoconservatism: Myth and reality". Society. 25 (5). New York: Transactions (purchased by Springer): 29–37. doi:10.1007/BF02695739. ISSN 0147-2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Massing, Michael (1987). "Trotsky's orphans: From Bolshevism to Reaganism". The New Republic: 18–22. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Muravchik, Joshua (January 2006). "Comrades". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved June 15, 2007. {{cite journal}}: External link in |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nossiter, Bernard D. (March 3, 1981). "New team at U.N.: Common roots and philosophies". The New York Times (Late City final ed.). section A, p. 2, col. 3. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pear, Robert (July 10, 1988). "U.S. supporting Solidarity fight". Albany Times Union. Albany, NY. (subscription required). Archived from the original on January 25, 2013. Retrieved April 14, 2012. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Puddington, Arch (2005). "Surviving the underground: How American unions helped Solidarity win". American Educator (Summer). American Federation of Teachers. Retrieved June 4, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Puddington, Arch (2005K). Lane Kirkland: Champion of American labor. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-41694-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Reed, Dale (1999), Register of the Carl Gershman papers (PDF), Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, archived from the original (PDF) on August 7, 2011, retrieved August 13, 2011 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Thiel, Rainer (2010). "U.S. democracy assistance in the Polish liberalization process 1980-1989 (Chapter 6)". Nested games of external democracy promotion: The United States and the Polish liberalization 1980-1989. VS Verlag. pp. 179–235, especially 204 and 231. ISBN 978-3-531-17769-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External resources

• Anonymous, Meet our President, National Endowment for Democracy, retrieved August 13, 2011 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McKew, Maxine (August 20, 2006), Carl Gershman: America's democrat, Sunday Profiles, Australia: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), retrieved August 13, 2011 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Reed, Dale (1999), Register of the Carl Gershman Papers (PDF), Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, archived from the original (PDF) on August 7, 2011, retrieved August 13, 2011 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)