It was founded in February 1981 with US$125,000 from the
Scaife Foundations, the
John M. Olin Foundation, and the
Smith Richardson Foundation. Other members included
Jeane Kirkpatrick,
Leszek Kołakowski,
Irving Kristol,
Melvin J. Lasky,
Seymour M. Lipset,
Donald Rumsfeld,
Tom Stoppard, and
George Will. Given the number of members who were formerly involved with the
Congress for Cultural Freedom, a
CIA front organization, John S. Friedman has argued in
The Nation that there are strong reasons to believe that the CFW continued the work of the CCF and still had ties to the CIA. It was headquartered in
New York City. It published a monthly newsletter,
Contentions. It also helped conservative newspapers on college campuses develop and the
National Association of Scholars. In 1989, both Decter and
Democratic Senator
Daniel P. Moynihan denied donating US$1 million to
Indian Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi through the organization. It was discontinued shortly after the collapse of the
Berlin Wall signaled the collapse of the
Soviet Union. ==References==