[1] It was edited by "Louis Dolivet," an émigré writer, film producer, and alleged Soviet spy born in Romania as Ludovici Udeanu with French citizenship under the alias Ludovic Brecher.
Alongside academics and journalists from the United States, Britain, Canada, and Mexico, Free World prominently featured the voices of anti-Axis Chinese nationalists as well as exiled leaders from Spain, Italy, France, elsewhere in Europe, Brazil, Chile, and elsewhere in Latin America.
[3] In this respect Free World was related to publications like The Week (1933–1941), a newsletter used by British journalist and Comintern agent Claud Cockburn to wage a disinformation campaign against Nancy Astor's notorious pro-Nazi 'Cliveden set.'
After a vivid drawing depicting Hitler as a demon in the throes of defeat, the opening pages of the first issue of Free World featured a brief note from Secretary of State Cordell Hull, which proclaimed that "There will be a better day" while affirming an"absolute faith in the ultimate triumph of the principles of humanity, translated into law and order, by which freedom and justice and security will again prevail.
To this end: Through its pages will speak the enlightened Latin Americans who understand that the fight on the other side of the Atlantic is also their fight; the people of Europe who know in their own flesh the merciless cruelty of Nazi domination; the forces that in China oppose to [sic] Japanese aggression not only their patriotic will for independence but also their faith in democracy; the leaders of democratic opinion in the United States, engaged in the double task of opposing the aggressors and contributing to the organization of a better world order.Thus while "stemming from many different origins, our movement toward a free world is in a certain sense symbolic of the democratic order to come.
"[7] In a piece titled "Political War," Dolivet further explicated the intended role of his new organization, while reminding readers that "the greatest ideological weapons against tyranny have been forged" by "private groups and associations.
"[8] The International Free World Association was formed during a June 15, 1941, conference in Washington, D.C., attended by exiled "citizens of sixteen nations, many of them former government officials of high rank," as reported by The New York Times.
[9] The group established an international headquarters in Manhattan while "forming chapters throughout the United States, Latin America, and certain nations of Europe and Asia," as described in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In addition to lobbying for a democratic world federation after the war, the association sought to spread awareness of the anti-Fascist underground in Europe, while at the same time transmitting information to members of the resistance.
Alongside the magazine, which started with English, Spanish, and Chinese editions, their message was disseminated through "Free World Radio,"which broadcast "several times a week to Europe and Latin America.
Through local chapters in the United States, which stretched from Pittsburgh to Hollywood, the Free World Association (co)sponsored or participated in forums, debates, and mass rallies like the March 1943 "Stop Hitler Now" demonstration it convened at Madison Square Garden along with the American Jewish Committee, the Church Peace Union, and the two major labor groups: the AFL and the CIO, among others.
Its orientation and specific aims regarding support for World War II had much in common with the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, led by Clark Eichelberger, and its offshoot the Fight for Freedom (FFF).
Another overlap was with the Union for Democratic Action, which was created in the spring of 1941 by Reinhold Niebuhr and others, including Freda Kirchwey and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., following Neibuhr's break with the Socialist Party led by the temporarily isolationist Norman Thomas.
Meanwhile, "the summary which he delivered in Spanish was broadcast by short wave to South America where it was rebroadcast on the regular Free World programs in Uruguay, Mexico, and Cuba," and was also "sent out...to Europe and the Far East.
"[20] In the words of Orson Welles biographer Joseph McBride, having been befriended by Dolivet, the prominent American actor/director began "serving as Free World's voice in print and on radio.
Some of that material made it into the work of conservative writers, like Alice Widener's 1952 piece on Communist influence in the founding of the UN for the libertarian journal The Freeman, or Karl Baarslag’s 1959 exposé on subversives linked to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), published in a newsletter for the Illinois-based Church League of America (CLA).
A former director of research for HUAC who might have also served at the Russian Desk for the Office of Naval Intelligence during World War II, Baarslag suggested that Brecher "had lived for a time in the small French village of D'Olivet from which he derived the name he used in this country."
[27] Alluding to this, Widener brings up Dolivet's work, The United Nations: A Handbook on the New World Organization, which was published "almost before the ink was dry on the Charter," and included an introduction by Secretary-General Trygve Lie dated June 26, 1946.
For instance in Last of the Cold War Spies: The Life of Michael Straight (2005), journalist Roland Perry confirms that "Louis Dolivet" was the alias of Ludovic Brecher, who was indeed a secret Comintern agent linked to Pierre Cot and the notorious German-born Soviet agitprop expert, Willi Münzenberg.
A record in the Beatrice Straight papers at the Dartington archive describes Louis Dolivet as a "political theorist and speaker, publisher and editor of Free World magazine [who] worked with Orson Welles," and "was also a film producer.
"[32] As described in his New York Times obituary, Michael Straight attended Dartington Hall, then the London School of Economics for a year before going to Trinity College at Cambridge University in 1934, where "he became a member of the circle around John Maynard Keynes, socialized with young radical patricians like himself and joined the Communist Party...mostly in sympathy with its Popular Front objectives of supporting democrat governments against the rising tide of Nazism.
"[33] He was enlisted into the (now infamous) Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring led by Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt, which successfully penetrated Britain's MI-6 on behalf of the Kremlin during the early Cold War.
He continued to pursue both politics and his stratospheric social life, sharing a house with Joseph Alsop, drafting speeches for and dining with the Roosevelts, and writing his analytic memorandums, some of which he passed on to Soviet intelligence.
In his 1993 memoir, After Long Silence, he confessed his involvement in the Cambridge spy ring, seeking to both explain and exonerate himself by contending that he was recruited reluctantly, and never passed classified information to his Soviet contact, "Michael Green."
Having been invited to work in the White House and concerned about undergoing a background check, Straight confided to Schlesinger who sent him to the Department of Justice, which helped trigger an investigation that resulted in Anthony Blunt's exposure.
The film producer had hoped to sponsor a political career for the popular actor, perhaps a bid for Senate from Wisconsin or California; Dolivet might have even been grooming Welles for a post as the first Secretary-General of the United Nations.
In conjunction with their work on the latter, Haynes and Klehr published "Alexander Vassiliev’s Notebooks: Provenance and Documentation of Soviet Intelligence Activities in the United States," which is online at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Additionally, Haynes compiled a useful "Vassiliev Notebooks Concordance File," which contains the following entry on page 42: Dolivet, Louis: Brother-in-law of Michael Straight and head of the Free World Association.