The committee was founded by Allen Dulles, later to be Director of Central Intelligence, in conjunction with DeWitt Clinton Poole.
Early board members included Dwight Eisenhower, Lucius D. Clay, Cecil B. DeMille, Henry Luce, Mark Ethridge, Charles Phelps Taft II and DeWitt Wallace.
The organization created and oversaw the anti-communist broadcast service Radio Free Europe.
[4] CIA subsidies to the Free Europe Committee ended in 1971 which caused restructuring to its operations.
[5] The Free Europe Committee sent balloons with leaflets from West Germany to the Eastern Bloc countries.