Ford Foundation, Red Cross served as assets for US psychological operations
By Marcus Boone ·
Global charities and private foundations were leveraged to shape perceptions abroad while the government managed narratives about biological warfare epidemics in Korea.
The US National Archives Catalog entry for the "General Files from Class 000 of the Decimal Files" does not contain the secrets themselves, but it provides the map of where they were kept. It is a scope-and-content description—a ledger of the Psychological Strategy Board’s (PSB) reach. According to the file's catalogue entry, this main series consists of correspondence, reports, and printed material that touch upon "every area" of the board's activities.
To understand the weight of that ledger, one has to look at what the PSB was. Established on April 4, 1951, under the Truman administration, the board was a coordination hub for psychological operations. It was a tripartite arrangement of power, composed of representatives from the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Its first director was Gordon Gray, a man who would later serve as National Security Advisor to Eisenhower. The public record indicates the PSB was a direct response to the expansion of covert activities managed by the Office of Policy Coordination during the Korean War.
When a government creates a board to coordinate "psychological strategy," the primary question is always: who are the partners?
"Societies and Associations"
The catalogue entry for Class 000 lists the "Executive Departments" as expected partners. The CIA, the State Department, the Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe are all present. These are the known instruments of American foreign policy and intelligence. But the entry also lists a category called "Societies and Associations."
Included in this list are the American Legion, the Ford Foundation, the Red Cross, and the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. The presence of these names in the general files of a psychological operations board suggests a blurring of the line between official state propaganda and the activities of private philanthropy and civic organizations. The Red Cross and the Ford Foundation are not intelligence agencies; they are humanitarian and educational entities. Yet, they appear here, categorized alongside the CIA in the board's general correspondence.
This suggests that by the early 1950s, the US government did not see a conflict in utilizing the perceived neutrality of global charities or the prestige of private foundations to further a coordinated psychological strategy. The documents in this series likely detail how these "associations" were leveraged to shape perceptions abroad, turning the image of American benevolence into a tactical asset.
Volga-Don Canal
The reach of the PSB was not limited to high-level diplomatic cables or clandestine radio broadcasts. The board’s interests extended into the physical and industrial realities of its adversaries. The National Archives holds a related series, the "Rivers, Harbors and Waterways Files from Class 800 of the Decimal Files," which the catalogue describes as containing correspondence relating to the completion of the Volga-Don Canal.
Why would a board tasked with "psychological strategy" be monitoring a shipping canal in the Soviet Union? The answer likely lies in the nature of psychological warfare: the ability to turn a physical achievement into a political liability, or to use industrial data to calibrate propaganda. A canal is not just a waterway; it is a symbol of state capacity and a target for narrative disruption.
Related files on the Soviet Union and Germany are also noted in the Class 000 general files, alongside references to National Security Council Paper 10/5. While other archives, such as the NSArchive at George Washington University and the State Department's FRUS volumes, hold related memos and threat assessments from this era, the PSB's decimal files provide a specific glimpse into the granular coordination of these efforts.
Class 700
Perhaps the most chilling entry in the catalogue is found in the "Medicine, Hygiene and Sanitation Files from Class 700 of the Decimal Files." This series contains correspondence, reports, and newspaper clippings relating to an epidemic in Korea. More specifically, the entry notes that these files concern a "Communist biological warfare propaganda campaign."
This is where the PSB’s mission becomes most transparent. The board was not merely observing an epidemic; it was managing the information surrounding it. In the heat of the Korean War, the battle over who was responsible for biological agents was a primary front of the psychological war. The Class 700 files represent the government's efforts to counter—or perhaps shape—the narrative of contagion and chemical weapons.
The board's work was an exercise in total coordination, from the philanthropic halls of the Ford Foundation to the mud of the Korean Peninsula. It was a system designed to ensure that every arm of American influence, whether public, private, or covert, was singing from the same sheet of music.
What remains of the human cost of this coordination is tucked away in another series. The "Personnel Files from Class 200 of the Decimal Files" contain the applications for employment, the reports, and the newspaper clippings concerning the people who staffed this operation. These files record the names and resumes of those who moved into the PSB to manage the world's perceptions.