Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies

The Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies (IEDSS) was set up in London in 1979 to study poitical change in Europe and to assess its impact on strategic and defence issues. It was particularly concerned with those developments which affected the Western Alliance. It was founded by Peter Blaker MP (now Lord Blaker), Ray Whitney MP and Stephen Haseler. According to Tom Easton :

"Haseler was not only a member of the SDP, but a founding member of the Social Democratic Alliance which preceded it. An academic who, as a London councillor, had become a vociferous critic of changes within the Labour Party in the Seventies, Haseler had spent some time at the third big Washington think-tank, the Heritage Foundation. With its money he had helped set up in London the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies, a forceful and well-resourced foe of both the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Labour Party in the Eighties."

IEDSS was the subject of a profile in City Limits (14 August 1986). According to Robin Ramsay , it was formed as part of the response to the British peace movement; Ramsay also suggests that Haseler has CIA connections, and Richard V. Allen was NSC advisor to Reagan until he got caught (or set up) taking a bribe. IEDSS appeared to be run by Gerald Frost who was in the Thatcher/Joseph Centre for Policy Studies.

This is confirmed by an investigation by the Nation that stated that: "Since 1982 the Heritage Foundation, the most influential conservative think tank in the United States, has channeled as much as $1 million to right-wing organizations in Britain and other Western European countries, with the aim of influencing domestic political affairs."

The article states that the British groups financed by Heritage were closely linked to senior figures in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party. In one case, that of the IEDSS, where the foundation provided start-up capital and the overwhelming bulk of continued financial support, the result is a virtual Heritage satellite.

Funding

Funders included the right wing US foundations The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. and the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.

Soviet view

The institute was denounced as a propaganda body by the Soviet Moscow Home service in 1987:

It is not only the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence that are engaged in fostering an aggressive image of the Soviet Union in the minds of the British people. Academic bodies have also taken up this unseemly task on the orders of the British Conservative Government. Amongst them is the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies.

No doubt this is just the kind of criticism that the Institute wanted. what is more interesting is that it should be reported as an 'academic' body. In fact it was chock full of cold warriors with intelligence connections.

People

1982 Advisory Council

Richard V. Allen (US National Security Council (NSC), appointed to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (DPB) Advisory Committee November 2001; Senior Fellow Hoover Institution 1983-present; Center for Strategic and International Studies Advisory Board; Project for the New American Century; Member Heritage Foundation; Council on Foreign Relations; The Nixon Center Advisory Council, International Crisis Group) | Luigi Barzini | Dr. Robert Conquest | Rt. Hon Lord George Brown | Brian Key MEP | Melvin J. Lasky: Ex-editor of Encounter | Leonard Schapiro | Pedro Schwartz | Frank Shakespeare | Dr. G. R. Urban

1982 Board of Management

Dr. Edwin J. Feulner Jr. (Chairman) president of the Heritage Foundation | Dr. Stephen Haseler (Sec) | Congressman David R. Bowen| Peter R. Durrant | Douglas Eden | Prof. Antonio Martino | Ray Whitney Information Research Department (IRD) | Gerald Frost (Ex. Dir.) | George Miller (research officer)

1985 Advisory Council

Dr. Robert Conquest | Brian Key MEP | Leopold Labedz | Melvin J. Lasky | Rt. Hon Reginald Prentice MP | Hon Frank Shakespeare | Dr. Philip Towle | Dr. G. R. Urban

1985 Board of Management

Richard V. Allen | Rt. Hon Sir Peter Blaker KCMG MP | Dr. Iain Elliot | Dr. Edwin J. Feulner Jr. | Dr. Stephen Haseler | Prof. Antonio Martino | Gerald Frost (Ex. Dir.) | Jonathan Luxmore (Editor)

1990 Advisory Council

Prof. Jean-Marie Benoist | Dr. Christopher Coker :BAP steering group 1996, RUSI, Chatham House and Institute for European Defence & Strategic Studies | Dr. Robert Conquest | Baroness Cox | Leopold Labedz | Melvin J. Lasky | John O'Sullivan | Pedro Schwartz | Hon. Frank Shakespeare | Dr. Philip Towle | Dr. G. R. Urban | Alan Lee Williams | Prof. Albert Wohlstetter

Members

1996

• Jimmy James

Contact, publications, notes

Contact

The IEDSS operated out of 13/14 Golden Square while 12a was used by Brian Crozier’s Institute for the Study of Conflict. Round the corner from Poland Street London, W1P 3FP

Publications

• Kuzio, T. (1995) "Back from the Brink", Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies. London: Alliance Publishers Ltd.
• Occasional paper No 7: 'Peace studies: a critical survey' by Caroline Cox and Roger Scruton, 1984.
• Occasional paper No 9: 'Idealism, Realism and the Myth of Appeasement' by Jeane Kirkpatrick, 1984.
• Occasional paper No 13: 'The Soviet connection': 'State sponsorship of terrorism' by Jillian Becker 1985.
• Occasional paper No 14: 'Neglect and betrayal: war and violence in modern sociology' by Donald Marsland 1985.
• Institute for European Defence & Strategic Studies press release: 'Sociology courses infected with anti-NATO bias, says report' 7 October 1985.
• Occasional paper No 15: 'World studies: education or indoctrination?' by Roger Scruton 1985.
• Institute for European Defence & Strategic Studies press release: "Curriculum activists" waging propaganda war in schools' 11 December 1985.