From 1965 to 1967, Gershman served with
Volunteers in Service to America in
Pittsburgh, In 1968 he graduated with a Master of Education from the
Harvard Graduate School of Education. Gershman also served on the editorial board of
Dissent magazine, As YPSL's vice chairman in December 1972, he authored a 13-page, singly spaced, international-affairs document which called for the
Castro regime in
Cuba to stop
funding guerrilla movements and to begin "loosening the bonds" of repression; the document was approved and an alternative document calling for the
U.S. government to recognize Cuba's government was defeated. which had lost 49 of 50 states to
Richard Nixon in the
1972 election. At the
Socialist Party USA convention in December 1972, Gershman introduced the international program, which was approved by a two to one vote; the losing alternative, proposed by
Michael Harrington, called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from
Vietnam, while the majority resolution called for a negotiated peace settlement. At the convention, the Socialist Party changed its name to
Social Democrats USA (SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34. Harrington resigned from SDUSA and founded the
Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) in 1973. In 1975, Gershman published a monograph on the foreign policy of the
American labor movement. From 1975 to January 1980, Gershman served as executive director of SDUSA. In 1980, he debated Michael Harrington on the topic of foreign policy. Gershman served as the
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council during the first term of the
Reagan Administration.
National Endowment for Democracy In 1984, Gershman was appointed president of the
National Endowment for Democracy. In a 2006 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Gershman said "I'm non-partisan; I try to bring Democrats and Republicans together in the United States, which is not that easy because we're very divided politically, today. And also, people from the business community and the trade union movement and intellectuals, and so forth, and try and bring people together around a common democratic faith and philosophy." NED was established the following year, in 1983, by an
Act of Congress. The
House Foreign Affairs Committee proposed legislation to provide initial funding of $31.3 million for NED as part of the State Department Authorization Act (H.R. 2915). Included in the legislation was $13.8 million for the
Free Trade Union Institute, an affiliate of the
AFL-CIO, much of which went to support
Solidarity), a Polish labor union, $2.5 million for an affiliate of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and $5 million each for two party institutes. The conference report on H.R. 2915 was adopted by the House on November 17, 1983, and by the
U.S. Senate the following day. On November 18, 1983, articles of incorporation were filed in Washington, D.C. to establish the National Endowment for Democracy as a nonprofit organization. Gershman openly stated that the NED did overtly what the CIA once did covertly. Among the shapers of the NED's agenda were
Madeleine Albright ("We are the indispensable nation") and
John McCain ("Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"). On August 10, 2020, Gershman, along with 10 other U.S. individuals, was
sanctioned by the Chinese government for "behaving badly on Hong Kong-related issues". In 2021, Gershman was the subject of a hoax by Russian comedians
Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, who convinced Gershman and other NED officials they were speaking remotely to
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the
Belarusian opposition leader, and an aide. Gersham said the NED "support many, many groups and we have a very, very active program throughout the country", and NED had contact with the chief aide to Russian opposition leader
Alexei Navalny. Gershman retired as president of NED in summer 2021. ==Publications==