Tom Braden | |
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| Born | Thomas Wardell Braden (1917-02-22)February 22, 1917 Greene, Iowa, U.S.[1] |
| Died | April 3, 2009(2009-04-03) (aged 92) Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Dartmouth College |
| Occupation(s) | Columnist, pundit |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 8 |
Thomas Wardell Braden (February 22, 1917 – April 3, 2009)[1] was an AmericanCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, journalist – best remembered as the author ofEight Is Enough, which spawned a television program – and co-host of theCNN showCrossfire.[2][3]
After graduating fromDartmouth College in 1940, Braden enlisted in theBritish Army while the U.S. was still neutral inWorld War II, serving in theNorth African campaign in theKing's Royal Rifle Corps.[4] When the United States entered the war, he was recruited by the U.S.Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA), and he was parachuted behind enemy lines intoNazi-occupied France. At the end of the war, with the encouragement of OSS DirectorWilliam "Wild Bill" Donovan, who thought of Braden as a protégé, he and his OSS paratrooper compatriotStewart Alsop wrote a journalistic book about the OSS, two years before it was replaced byHarry Truman with the CIA.[5]
After the war, Braden taught English for a time at Dartmouth, where he metRobert Frost, and he later moved to Washington, D.C., and became part of a group of well-connected former OSS men, some of whom were journalists such as the Alsop brothers, known as theGeorgetown Set. Braden began staunchly advocating for a permanent civilian American intelligence agency.
In 1950, at the start of theKorean War,Allen Dulles invited Braden to become his personal assistant at the Central Intelligence Agency.[6] He accepted, and was assigned the codename "Homer D. Hoskins".[6] His role waswithout portfolio, apparently assigned toFrank Wisner’sOffice of Policy Coordination (OPC) but in reality working directly subordinate to Dulles. It was upon Braden’s suggestion that Wisner’s OPC and the then small and under-utilized International Organizations Branch be merged, allowing him to set up the newInternational Organizations Division (IOD) under the deputy director of plans (DDP).[7][6]
Believing that the cultural milieu of postwar Europe was favorable toward left-wing views, he understood that the Western Allies'Establishment was rigidly conservative and nationalistic and determined to maintain their colonial dominions. The CIA estimated American supremacy to be best served by supporting the Democratic left. Thus, the program was begun to support more moderate and especially anti-Soviet leftists, thereby helping to purge the social democratic left of Soviet sympathizers.
Consequently, Braden's efforts were guided toward promoting anti-Sovietleft-wing elements in groups such as theAFL-CIO. Eventually, despite heavy resistance from British and French allies, the CIA made the leap toward recruiting disaffected anti-Soviet ex-communists, especially in international labor unions. Thus, from 1951 to 1954, the CIA provided $1 million a year through Braden toIrving Brown, a moderate labor leader, and it eventually recruited as an officerJay Lovestone, a noted former communist follower ofNikolai Bukharin, who had been executed by Stalin in 1938.[8] The CIA helped him financially to run his network with $1.6 million in 1954 (equivalent to approximately $18,734,077 in 2024 dollars[9]).[10]
AfterRamparts, the flagship publication of theNew Left, broke the story of the CIA's funding of anticommunist citizen groups like theNational Student Association in a 1967 article,[11] Braden defended the agency's covert work in the student and labor movements with an article, "I'm Glad the CIA is 'Immoral,'" inThe Saturday Evening Post.[12]
Braden left the CIA in November 1954 and became owner of theOceanside, California, newspaperThe Blade-Tribune, which he bought with a loan from his friendNelson Rockefeller.[13] Active in California Democratic politics, he served as president of theCalifornia State Board of Education during the 1960s, and had a running battle with conservative Republican statesuperintendent of public instructionMax Rafferty.[14]
Braden himself ran for office only once, mounting an unsuccessful primary challenge in 1966 (with the campaign theme "Guts") to incumbent Democratic lieutenant governorGlenn Anderson.
After the assassination in Los Angeles of his friendRobert F. Kennedy during the 1968 presidential campaign, Braden returned to Washington and became a popular newspaper columnist in partnership with Kennedy's press secretary,Frank Mankiewicz. He also became a prominent political commentator on radio and television.
Although the Nixon White House initially included him on a list of friendly journalists,[15] his work eventually landed him on themaster list of Nixon political opponents.
In 1975, Braden published the autobiographical bookEight is Enough, which inspired anABC television series of the same name withDick Van Patten in the role of Tom Bradford, the name of Braden's character in the series. The book focused on his life as the father of eight children and also touched on his political connections as a columnist and ex-CIA operative and as husband to a sometime State Department employee and companion of theKennedy family, Joan Ridley Braden.[16]
After replacing Mankiewicz as the "voice from the left" on the syndicated radio showConfrontation, Tom Braden co-hosted theBuchanan–Braden Program, a three-hour radio show with former Nixon aidePat Buchanan from 1978 to 1984.[17] He and Buchanan also hosted theCNN programCrossfire at the show's inception in 1982, with Braden interviewing guests and debating Buchanan andRobert Novak. Braden leftCrossfire in 1989.
Braden died ofcardiac arrest on April 3, 2009, at his home inDenver, Colorado.[18] He was predeceased by his wife Joan, who died in 1999, and son Tom, who died in 1994.[13]
Articles
Books
Book reviews
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