The Asia Foundation

The Asia Foundation   (Front)
Abbreviation	TAF
Formation	1954
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, USA
Interests	Asia
Sponsored by	Australia/Department/Foreign Affairs and Trade, ClimateWorks, Global Affairs Canada, US/Department/State, USAID, World Bank
Exposed as CIA front organization as far back as 1967.

The Asia Foundation (TAF) was exposed as CIA front organization in 1967.

Official narrative

The Asia Foundation is a nonprofit international development organization committed to improving lives and expanding opportunities across Asia and the Pacific. Informed by 70 years of experience and deep local knowledge, our work is focused on governance, climate action, education and leadership, inclusive growth, international cooperation, and women's empowerment and gender equality.

Founded by the CIA

Victor Marchetti in his book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence described the Asia Foundation as:

Another organization heavily subsidized by the CIA was the Asia Foundation. Established by the agency (CIA) in 1956, with a carefully chosen board of directors, the foundation was designed to promote academic and private interest in the East. It sponsored scholarly research, supported conferences and symposia, and ran academic exchange programs, a CIA subsidy that reached US$88 million dollars a year. While most of the foundation's activities were legitimate, the CIA also used it...to recruit foreign agents and new officers. Although the foundation often served as a cover for clandestine operations, its main purpose was to promote the spread of ideas which were anti-communist and pro-American - sometimes subtly and stridently...Designed - and justified at budget time - as an overseas propaganda operation, the Asia Foundation also was regularly guilty of propagandizing the American people with Agency views on Asia. The Agency's connection with the Asia Foundation came to light just after the 1967 exposure of CIA subsidies to the (American) National Student Association. The foundation clearly was one of the organizations which the CIA was banned from financing and, under the recommendations of the Katzenbach committee, the decision was made to end CIA funding. A complete cut-off after 1967, however, would have forced the foundation to shut down, so the agency made it the beneficiary of a large 'severance payment' in order to give it a couple of years to develop alternative sources of funding. Assuming the CIA has not resumed covert funding, the Asia Foundation has apparently made itself self-sufficient now...during the 1960s, the CIA developed proprietary companies for use in propaganda operations. These proprietaries are more compact proprietaries and more covert than the now-exposed fronts like Asia Foundation and Radio Free Europe."

CIA admitted to funding

The US government in 1967 wrote that:

The Asia Foundation (TAF), a Central Intelligence Agency proprietary, was established in 1954 to undertake cultural and educational activities on behalf of the United States Government in ways not open to official U.S. agencies. Over the past twelve years TAF has accomplished its assigned mission with increasing effectiveness and has, in the process, become a widely-known institution, in Asia and the United States. TAF is now experiencing inquiries regarding its sources of funds and connections with the U.S. Government from the aggressive leftist publication, Ramparts. It is conceivable that such inquiries will lead to a published revelation of TAF's CIA connection. In the present climate of national dissent and in the wake of recent critical press comment on CIA involvement with American universities, we feel a public allegation that CIA funds and controls TAF would be seized upon, with or without proof, and magnified beyond its actual significance to embarrass the Administration and U.S. national interests at home and abroad. Some immediate defensive and remedial measures are required [2-1/2 lines of source text not declassified].

2023 funders

Select sponsors in 2023, to a large extent open Western government funding through ministries of foreign affairs and development organizations.

 

Sponsors

Event	Description
Australia/Department/Foreign Affairs and Trade	Australian Foreign Affairs department
ClimateWorks	Large funder of projects intended to steer public opinion and take control over all government policy under the pretext of fighting climate change. Part of "a blob" of similar very wealthy interconnected foundations with opaque structures. Backers include Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg.
Global Affairs Canada	Canadian foreign affairs department that assisted with A Spreading Plague, the 2019 pandemic planning exercise at the MSC
US/Department/State	Set up in 1789, the US State Department is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministry of other countries.
USAID	US govt organization to provide "international development", including funding of Ecohealth Alliance. Called "CIA's little sister".
World Bank

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