Thomas Braden
Encyclopedia
Thomas Wardell Braden was an American
journalist
, best remembered as the author of Eight is Enough
, which spawned a popular television program, and was co-host of the CNN
show Crossfire
. Braden was born in Greene, Iowa
and died in Denver, Colorado
.
in 1940, Braden enlisted in the British Army
, while the US was still neutral in World War II
and saw combat in Africa. When the United States entered the war, he was recruited by the US Office of Strategic Services
(OSS), the World War II predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and parachuted behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied France. At the end of the war, with the encouragement of OSS Director William "Wild Bill" Donovan, who thought of Braden as a protegé, he and his OSS paratrooper compatriot Stewart Alsop
wrote a journalistic book about the OSS, just as it was being dissolved by Harry Truman, two years before the creation of the CIA.
After the war, Braden taught English for a time at Dartmouth (where he met Robert Frost
), then moved to Washington DC, becoming part of a group of well-connected journalists, which included Alsop, known as the "Georgetown Set".
In 1950, at the start of the Korean War
, Braden joined the CIA and in 1950 became head of the International Organizations Division (IOD) of CIA's Office of Policy Coordination
, the "covert action" arm of Agency secret operations, working closely with Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner
. Believing that the cultural milieu of post-war Europe at the time was favorable toward left-wing views, and understanding that The Establishment
of Western Allies was rigidly conservative and nationalistic as well as determined to maintain their colonial dominions, it was estimated that American supremacy would be best served by supporting the Democratic left. Thus, the program was begun by which more moderate and especially anti-Soviet leftists would be supported thereby helping to purge the social democratic left of Soviet sympathizers.
Consequently, Bradens efforts were guided toward promoting anti-Soviet left-wing elements in groups like AFL-CIO
. Eventually, despite heavy resistance from British and French allies, the CIA made the leap toward recruiting anti-Soviet communists followers of Trotskyism
, especially in the international labor unions. Thus, from 1951 to 1954, the CIA provided $1,000,000 a year, through Braden, to Irving Brown
, a moderate Labor leader, and eventually recruited as a CIA officer, Jay Lovestone
, a noted communist follower of Trotskyism, helping him financially to run his network with ($1,600,000 in 1954).
These various programs eventually coalesced into a larger coordinated campaign to influence international organizations especially through media relations. In this regard, while head of the IOD, Braden played an important role in formally establishing this campaign as Operation Mockingbird
. Many years later he revealed his role in these events:
Ironically, it was another CIA proprietary organization which broke the story of this program, leading many to believe the exposure itself was orchestrated to cover the establishment of a different media campaign. This organization was Ramparts, whose 1967 article exposed CIA involvement in groups like the National Student Association
, Braden defended the agency's covert work in the student and labor movements with "I'm glad the CIA is 'immoral'" in The Saturday Evening Post
.(Though intended to be a defense of the Agency, his revelations in that indelicately-titled article raised the hackles of many of his old friends in the CIA).
newspaper, The Blade-Tribune, which he bought with a loan from his friend Nelson Rockefeller
. Active in California Democratic politics, he served as President of the California State Board of Education
during the 1960s, and had a running battle with conservative Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction Max Rafferty
.
Braden himself ran for office only once, mounting an unsuccessful Primary challenge in 1966 (with the campaign theme "Guts") to incumbent Democratic Lt. Governor Glenn Anderson.
After the assassination in Los Angeles of his friend Robert F. Kennedy during the 1968 presidential campaign, Braden returned to Washington and became a popular newspaper columnist in partnership with Kennedy's Press Secretary Frank Mankiewicz
. He also became a prominent political commentator on radio and television.
Although the Nixon White House initially included him on a list of friendly journalists, his work eventually landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents
.
In 1975 Braden published the autobiographical book, Eight is Enough
, which inspired an ABC
television series of the same name with Dick Van Patten
in the role of Tom Bradford, the name of Braden's character in the series. The book focused on his life as the father of eight children and also touched on his political connections as a columnist and ex-CIA operative and as husband to a sometime State Department employee and companion of the Kennedy family
, Joan Vermillion Braden. The television series, however, bore little relationship to the book other than naming the original characters after the Braden family and giving the lead character a job in journalism.
After replacing Mankiewicz as the "voice from the left" on the syndicated radio show Confrontation, from 1978 to 1984 Braden co-hosted the Buchanan-Braden Program, a three-hour radio show with former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan
. He and Buchanan also hosted the CNN
program Crossfire
at the show's inception in 1982, with Braden interviewing guests and debating Buchanan and Robert Novak
. Braden left Crossfire
in 1989.
He was predeceased by his wife of 50 years, Joan Ridley Braden, who died in 1999. One of their sons, Thomas W. Braden III, a reporter on the Aspen (Colo.) Daily News and a specialist in the use of computers in investigative journalism, died in 1994 in a traffic accident near Gunnison, Colorado at the age of 33. Survivors include seven children, David Braden of Taipei, Taiwan, Mary Braden Poole of Arlington, Virginia., Nicholas Braden of Washington D.C, Susan Braden of Takoma Park, Maryland
., and Joannie Braden, Nancy Braden Basta and Elizabeth Braden, all of Denver, Colorado
; and 12 grandchildren.
Witty and charming, Joan Braden was a popular Washington hostess who also held a number of low-profile political and government positions. During John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, she reportedly ghosted a weekly newspaper column, Campaign Wife, for Jacqueline Kennedy, who could not understand the respect of her husband and brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy
, for Braden's opinions. Later, Joan Braden worked as Coordinator of Consumer Affairs in the State Department, a position created for her in 1976 while her friend Henry Kissinger
was Secretary of State. Among her other close friends were former Ambassador Averell Harriman and CIA Director Richard Helms
.
The Bradens had an open marriage
, and Joan reportedly had notable dalliances with their mutual friends, Republican Governor of New York
Nelson Rockefeller
, and former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
. In her 1989 autobiographic memoir, she also implied an intimate relationship with Robert Kennedy.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, best remembered as the author of Eight is Enough
Eight Is Enough
Eight Is Enough is an American television comedy-drama series which ran on ABC from March 15, 1977 until August 29, 1981. The show was modeled after syndicated newspaper columnist Thomas Braden, a real-life parent with eight children, who wrote a book with the same name...
, which spawned a popular television program, and was co-host of the CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
show Crossfire
Crossfire (TV series)
Crossfire was a current events debate television program that aired from 1982 to 2005 on CNN. Its format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.-Format:...
. Braden was born in Greene, Iowa
Greene, Iowa
Greene is a city in Butler County, Iowa, along the Shell Rock River, and along Butler County's northern border, where Butler and Floyd counties meet. The population was 1,099 at the 2000 census...
and died in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
.
Intelligence service in OSS and CIA
After graduating from Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1940, Braden enlisted in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, while the US was still neutral in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and saw combat in Africa. When the United States entered the war, he was recruited by the US Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
(OSS), the World War II predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) and parachuted behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied France. At the end of the war, with the encouragement of OSS Director William "Wild Bill" Donovan, who thought of Braden as a protegé, he and his OSS paratrooper compatriot Stewart Alsop
Stewart Alsop
Stewart Johonnot Oliver Alsop was an American newspaper columnist and political analyst.Born and raised in Avon, Connecticut, Alsop attended Groton School and Yale University...
wrote a journalistic book about the OSS, just as it was being dissolved by Harry Truman, two years before the creation of the CIA.
After the war, Braden taught English for a time at Dartmouth (where he met Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
), then moved to Washington DC, becoming part of a group of well-connected journalists, which included Alsop, known as the "Georgetown Set".
In 1950, at the start of the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, Braden joined the CIA and in 1950 became head of the International Organizations Division (IOD) of CIA's Office of Policy Coordination
Office of Policy Coordination
The Office of Policy Coordination was a United States covert psychological operations and paramilitary action organization. Created as an independent office in 1948, it was merged with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951....
, the "covert action" arm of Agency secret operations, working closely with Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner
Frank Wisner
Frank Gardiner Wisner was head of Office of Strategic Services operations in southeastern Europe at the end of World War II, and the head of the Directorate of Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1950s....
. Believing that the cultural milieu of post-war Europe at the time was favorable toward left-wing views, and understanding that The Establishment
The Establishment
The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
of Western Allies was rigidly conservative and nationalistic as well as determined to maintain their colonial dominions, it was estimated that American supremacy would be best served by supporting the Democratic left. Thus, the program was begun by which more moderate and especially anti-Soviet leftists would be supported thereby helping to purge the social democratic left of Soviet sympathizers.
Consequently, Bradens efforts were guided toward promoting anti-Soviet left-wing elements in groups like AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
. Eventually, despite heavy resistance from British and French allies, the CIA made the leap toward recruiting anti-Soviet communists followers of Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
, especially in the international labor unions. Thus, from 1951 to 1954, the CIA provided $1,000,000 a year, through Braden, to Irving Brown
Irving Brown
Irving Brown was an American trade-unionist, member of the American Federation of Labor and then of the AFL-CIO, who played an important role in Western Europe and in Africa, during the Cold War, in supporting splits among trade-unions in order to counter Communist influence...
, a moderate Labor leader, and eventually recruited as a CIA officer, Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
, a noted communist follower of Trotskyism, helping him financially to run his network with ($1,600,000 in 1954).
These various programs eventually coalesced into a larger coordinated campaign to influence international organizations especially through media relations. In this regard, while head of the IOD, Braden played an important role in formally establishing this campaign as Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence foreign media beginning in the 1950s.The activities, extent and even the existence of the CIA project remain in dispute: the operation was first called Mockingbird in Deborah Davis' 1979 book, Katharine the Great:...
. Many years later he revealed his role in these events:
- "If the director of CIA wanted to extend a present, say, to someone in EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
— a Labour leader — suppose he just thought, This man can use fifty thousand dollars, he's working well and doing a good job — he could hand it to him and never have to account to anybody.... There was simply no limit to the money it could spend and no limit to the people it could hire and no limit to the activities it could decide were necessary to conduct the war — the secret war.... It was a multinational. Maybe it was one of the first. Journalists were a target, labor unions a particular target — that was one of the activities in which the communists spent the most money".
Ironically, it was another CIA proprietary organization which broke the story of this program, leading many to believe the exposure itself was orchestrated to cover the establishment of a different media campaign. This organization was Ramparts, whose 1967 article exposed CIA involvement in groups like the National Student Association
National Student Association
The United States National Student Association, a confederation of American college and university student governments, was founded in 1947 at a conference at the University of Wisconsin. It established its first headquarters in Madison, not far from the U. of Wisconsin campus...
, Braden defended the agency's covert work in the student and labor movements with "I'm glad the CIA is 'immoral'" in The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
.(Though intended to be a defense of the Agency, his revelations in that indelicately-titled article raised the hackles of many of his old friends in the CIA).
Politics, government and journalism
Braden left the CIA in November, 1954, and became owner of the Oceanside, CaliforniaOceanside, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Oceanside had a population of 167,086. The population density was 3,961.8 people per square mile...
newspaper, The Blade-Tribune, which he bought with a loan from his friend Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
. Active in California Democratic politics, he served as President of the California State Board of Education
California State Board of Education
The California State Board of Education is the governing and policy-making body of the California Department of Education. The State Board of Education sets K-12 education policy in the areas of standards, instructional materials, assessment, and accountability...
during the 1960s, and had a running battle with conservative Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction Max Rafferty
Max Rafferty
Maxwell Lewis Rafferty was an author, educator, and politician.-Early life:...
.
Braden himself ran for office only once, mounting an unsuccessful Primary challenge in 1966 (with the campaign theme "Guts") to incumbent Democratic Lt. Governor Glenn Anderson.
After the assassination in Los Angeles of his friend Robert F. Kennedy during the 1968 presidential campaign, Braden returned to Washington and became a popular newspaper columnist in partnership with Kennedy's Press Secretary Frank Mankiewicz
Frank Mankiewicz
Frank Fabian Mankiewicz II is an American journalist.-Biography:He grew up in Beverly Hills, California. His father, screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, co-wrote Citizen Kane, and his uncle, Joseph Mankiewicz, directed such films as All About Eve and Cleopatra.Mankiewicz received a B.A...
. He also became a prominent political commentator on radio and television.
Although the Nixon White House initially included him on a list of friendly journalists, his work eventually landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents
Master list of Nixon political opponents
A master list of Nixon political opponents was compiled to supplement the original Nixon's Enemies List of 20 key people considered opponents of President Richard Nixon. The master list was compiled by Charles Colson's office and sent in memorandum form to John Dean. Dean later provided this...
.
In 1975 Braden published the autobiographical book, Eight is Enough
Eight Is Enough
Eight Is Enough is an American television comedy-drama series which ran on ABC from March 15, 1977 until August 29, 1981. The show was modeled after syndicated newspaper columnist Thomas Braden, a real-life parent with eight children, who wrote a book with the same name...
, which inspired an ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television series of the same name with Dick Van Patten
Dick Van Patten
Richard Vincent "Dick" Van Patten is an American actor, best known for his role as patriarch Tom Bradford on the television sitcom Eight is Enough. He began work as a child actor and was successful on the [New York] stage, appearing in more than a dozen plays as a teenager...
in the role of Tom Bradford, the name of Braden's character in the series. The book focused on his life as the father of eight children and also touched on his political connections as a columnist and ex-CIA operative and as husband to a sometime State Department employee and companion of the Kennedy family
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
, Joan Vermillion Braden. The television series, however, bore little relationship to the book other than naming the original characters after the Braden family and giving the lead character a job in journalism.
After replacing Mankiewicz as the "voice from the left" on the syndicated radio show Confrontation, from 1978 to 1984 Braden co-hosted the Buchanan-Braden Program, a three-hour radio show with former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
. He and Buchanan also hosted the CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
program Crossfire
Crossfire (TV series)
Crossfire was a current events debate television program that aired from 1982 to 2005 on CNN. Its format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.-Format:...
at the show's inception in 1982, with Braden interviewing guests and debating Buchanan and Robert Novak
Robert Novak
Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving for the U.S. Army in the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for...
. Braden left Crossfire
Crossfire (TV series)
Crossfire was a current events debate television program that aired from 1982 to 2005 on CNN. Its format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.-Format:...
in 1989.
He was predeceased by his wife of 50 years, Joan Ridley Braden, who died in 1999. One of their sons, Thomas W. Braden III, a reporter on the Aspen (Colo.) Daily News and a specialist in the use of computers in investigative journalism, died in 1994 in a traffic accident near Gunnison, Colorado at the age of 33. Survivors include seven children, David Braden of Taipei, Taiwan, Mary Braden Poole of Arlington, Virginia., Nicholas Braden of Washington D.C, Susan Braden of Takoma Park, Maryland
Takoma Park, Maryland
Takoma Park is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Washington, D.C., and part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. Founded in 1883 and incorporated in 1890, Takoma Park, informally called "Azalea City," is a Tree City USA and a nuclear-free zone...
., and Joannie Braden, Nancy Braden Basta and Elizabeth Braden, all of Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
; and 12 grandchildren.
Witty and charming, Joan Braden was a popular Washington hostess who also held a number of low-profile political and government positions. During John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, she reportedly ghosted a weekly newspaper column, Campaign Wife, for Jacqueline Kennedy, who could not understand the respect of her husband and brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
, for Braden's opinions. Later, Joan Braden worked as Coordinator of Consumer Affairs in the State Department, a position created for her in 1976 while her friend Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
was Secretary of State. Among her other close friends were former Ambassador Averell Harriman and CIA Director Richard Helms
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to the United States Congress over Central Intelligence Agency undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended...
.
The Bradens had an open marriage
Open marriage
Open marriage typically refers to a marriage in which the partners agree that each may engage in extramarital sexual relationships, without this being regarded as infidelity. There are many different styles of open marriage, with the partners having varying levels of input on their spouse's...
, and Joan reportedly had notable dalliances with their mutual friends, Republican Governor of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
, and former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...
. In her 1989 autobiographic memoir, she also implied an intimate relationship with Robert Kennedy.