‘To win the confidence of these curiously twisted and disoriented people’: the Ford Foundation’s Free Russia Fund, George F. Kennan and refugees from the Soviet Union

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the origins of the Free Russia Fund/East European Fund, a philanthropic project carried out through the Ford Foundation that aimed to offer support for displaced persons arriving in the United States in the early 1950s. It demonstrates that George F. Kennan and other organisers of the project started the endeavour with bold Cold War ambitions, but soon lost hope in the political potential of refugees and exiles. The episode casts light on the confusion surrounding ‘liberationism’, the commitment of some US policymakers and commentators to the liberation of Russia and Soviet satellite countries from communist rule.