International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity

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In 1988 the New York Times reported that "the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity is settling into its new headquarters on a tree-shaded block in central Moscow. When the final obstacles are overcome, as expected, the foundation will be the first of its kind on Soviet soil - an organization set up to function independently of the Government, financed by private contributors in this country and abroad with freedom to choose its own activities...

"It is the International Foundation, with its impressive governing board of eminent scientists, scholars and business leaders from 18 countries, that is the showcase and has been endorsed by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, and energetically supported by Dr. Yevgeni P. Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences...

"Dr. Velikhov, with Jerome Wiesner, president emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed the International Foundation during a meeting of scientists, artists and scholars in Moscow in 1987. They now serve as its chairman and vice chairman.

"Dr. Wiesner joined other Americans in the philanthropy field, among them David Hamburg, the president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to lay the groundwork for the new foundation. The American board members include Robert S. McNamara, former president of the World Bank and former Secretary of Defense; the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame University; John Sculley, chief executive officer of Apple Computer Inc.; Prof. Frank von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton University, and Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of President Eisenhower and a board member of the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute...

"The Moscow foundation seeks no government financial support; it is looking for grants principally from American philanthropies and individuals, and from foundations in Western Europe and Japan. It also has received a sizable contribution from the Soviet Peace Fund, which received part of its money from individuals and the Russian Orthodox Church, and unspent donations that were sent by Soviet citizens to the Chernobyl emergency fund. The foundation's organizers say it will accept contributions only from private citizens or groups in the Soviet Union - not from any Government agency.

"Dr. Hamburg, who agreed to serve as an adviser but not a board member, said in a recent interview in New York that the Carnegie Corporation was holding off on financial support to make sure that the new foundation is not susceptible to exploitation for propaganda purposes...

"The foundation's initial costs are underwritten with grants from the Ploughshares Fund of San Francisco, members of the Rockefeller family and other contributors. Part of a $1 million grant from Armand Hammer, the chairman of Occidental Petroleum and a foundation board member, was used to purchase the new headquarters. " [1]

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  1. New York Times U.S.-Style Philanthropy Gains in the Soviet Union, organizational web page, accessed March 25, 2018.