FROM RT, ROLE OF WOMEN IN THE USSR, AND THE US, AND CHANGE AND CHALLENGES

 This woman was the link between the Soviets, the CIA, and feminism

Gloria Steinem rose as women’s rights became a Cold War battleground, with Washington reacting to Moscow’s model of female modernity

Published 6 Sep, 2026 16:20 | Updated 6 Sep, 2026 17:25

By Rachel Marsden, a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.

rachelmarsden.com

American feminist and activist Gloria Steinem speaks at a rally outside the United Nations, New York, New York, 1978 ©  Bettye Lane / Photo Researchers History / Getty Images

It’s impossible to fully understand the legacy of American feminist icon Gloria Steinem without mentioning Russia.

Steinem – who fought her entire life to promote the radical concept that women should be able to choose whatever kind of life they want – passed away peacefully at her New York home last week at the age of 92. Judging by all the hair-pulling going on over her involvement with the CIA, you’d think that she had been tasked with planting exploding cigars on Fidel Castro.

But here’s what actually happened. Fresh out of Smith College in her early 20s, she took off to India to report for two years for a murky “fellowship,” capturing a newly independent country experimenting with Gandhian social reform, where women were actively collaborating to find their place.

When she returned home, she wanted to keep the party going and spread the same kind of enlightened ideals. She asked around about funding. Shockingly, corporations weren’t interested. But THE Corporation was.

The CIA was willing to fork over some cash, but it would involve setting up a think-tank: the Independent Research Service. She could load up a flight with liberal-minded young American students and professionals who were psyched about leftist ideals – but not too psyched – and take them over to the Soviet-organized World Youth Festivals in Helsinki and Vienna as an option to Communism. In exchange, she just had to produce some deliverables with her observations.

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Basically, she was at the scrimmage line on the global playing field for Western-style liberalism during the Cold War against Communist ideology.

But what does any of this have to do with her lifelong fight for women’s rights and equality? Lots, actually.

Right around the same time as Steinem was being paid by the CIA to take Americans to the festivals, the agency published a report expressing its concern over the use of peace, brotherhood, and social progress to attract non-Communists from around the world to these festivals.

It cited a 1956 Moscow Radio broadcast: “The World Festival which is to be convened in Moscow” will “greet the festival of youth and peace with new labor achievements… Let us show our foreign contemporaries the results of the inspired creative labor of the Soviet people, the wealth of our socialist motherland, and everything of which the Soviet people are proud.”

One of those things of which Soviet society was very proud was the leading role of women in the workforce. In the wake of WWII’s losses, it was an inevitability that women were going to be stepping up as a matter of pragmatic reality.

The Committee of Soviet Women (KSZh) leveraged the 1957 Moscow festival to establish relationships with women from the developing world. The committee’s later reports indicate that women from Africa and South Asia were interested in the Soviet model, including such things as childcare provisions and female workforce participation, according to diplomatic historians.

Soviet archives say that visitors encountered Soviet institutions and it prompted them to think about “new possibilities for their societies.” The status of women was specifically one of the areas around which Soviet hosts and foreign visitors developed solidarity.

At the 1957 Moscow World Youth Festival, the Soviet Union made the social position of women part of its international cultural diplomacy. They were presented as educated, socially active participants in Soviet public life.

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Surely just a coincidence that the CIA then paid Steinem to attend the 1959 and 1962 festivals, where she would have been exposed to this new model for women. And that she was doing so just as Washington was also increasingly focused on competing with this new Soviet economic model.

And surely it’s just another coincidence that President John F. Kennedy established the President’s Commission on the Status of Women in 1961, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt – or that JFK himself had been impressed by women in important positions in the USSR, according to his own brother, the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

Steinem’s Playboy Bunny exposé showing the exploitation of women in Hugh Hefner’s “gentlemen’s” clubs came just a year after one of the festivals, in 1963. The same year that the USSR was also sending a woman to space, while America was sending women to get butt-slapped by some pervert for a paycheck.

Don’t think that the CIA noticed or really cared that much about what women were doing in the workforce at home and abroad? They were actually kind of obsessed with it. To the point of collecting for their files a 1965 congressional report pointing out how women were everywhere in the Soviet workforce, and that “the party and Government have succeeded in altering social custom and public attitudes toward the employment of women.”

In 1963, the CIA found that “by 1959 about 80 percent of Soviet physicians and almost 75 percent of teachers, economists, and planners were women,” in a report concerned with Soviet leadership potential.

In 1974, three years after Steinem had nationally launched the political women’s issue magazine, ‘Ms.’, and become synonymous with the women’s liberation movement, Washington’s Rand Corporation think tank was still churning out research on women’s roles in science and technology in the USSR vs. America.

The Soviets had already understood the value of putting women to work, educating them, and showcasing them as evidence of social progress to the rest of the world. Hardly surprising that it wasn’t long before Washington understood the competitive value of offering its own version.

Steinem entered the American establishment’s Cold War contest with Russia over competing models of modernity at precisely the moment when the status of women had become part of that ideological battlefield.

At the perfect time, she waltzed in through a door that was just begging to be opened by the American establishment. One that had already been flung wide open by Soviet men and women.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

DID THE US CONDUCT A SURPRISE ATTACK ON FRENCH COLONIES DURING WWII?

 I thank Google AI for this answer.  

"Yes, the United States, along with Great Britain, conducted a massive surprise amphibious invasion against Vichy French colonies in North Africa during World War II.

Codenamed Operation Torch, the offensive began on November 8, 1942, targeting Vichy-controlled French Morocco and Algeria. Because the United States maintained formal diplomatic relations with the officially neutral Vichy French government at the time, the assault was launched without a declaration of war or formal advance warning, functioning logistically as a sneak attack to ensure the element of surprise. [1, 2, 3]

Strategic Objectives

The operation, commanded by Allied General Dwight D. Eisenhower, aimed to achieve several critical goals: [1]

Open a Second Front: Relieve intense military pressure on the Soviet Union by forcing the Axis powers to divide their forces. [1, 2]
Pincer Movement: Encircle the Axis forces (specifically Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps) by landing behind them while British forces pushed westward from Egypt. [1, 2]
Secure the Mediterranean: Reclaim control of vital maritime shipping lanes. [1]

Secret Diplomacy vs. Tactical Surprise

While the Vichy government in France received no warning, American diplomats and intelligence officials did attempt to minimize bloodshed through clandestine channels:

The Secret Mission: U.S. General Mark Clark secretly sneaked into North Africa via submarine weeks prior to meet with pro-Allied French military officers. [1]
The Algiers Coup: On the night of the invasion, local pro-Allied French Resistance fighters staged a successful coup in Algiers, neutralizing the Vichy military leadership and allowing Allied forces to secure the city with minimal resistance. [1, 2]

The Outcome

Despite hopes that the French would not shoot at American troops, fierce fighting broke out at the landing sites in Oran and Casablanca. Vichy naval forces and shore batteries heavily resisted the assault, resulting in several thousand casualties on both sides. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The fighting ended abruptly on November 11, 1942, after Allied officials struck a deal with Vichy Admiral François Darlan, who ordered a total ceasefire. In retaliation for the deal, Nazi Germany immediately broke its armistice with France and occupied the rest of France."

My comment- Those who watched the French tv program, The Line of Demarcation, about a French village under Marshall Petain's government, there was almost no mention of this, or of Churchill's destruction of French ships in 1941, when France surrendered to the Germans.  France lost nearly 1,000 sailors, at Churchill's command, and many French then demanded their nation declare war or their ally of the previous week who launched a sneak attack killing so many seamen.

There is a video on You Tube about events when Hitler attacked the USSR in summer 1940.  What would America do?  All awaited Pres. Roosevelt's decision.  Meanwhile, what the video calls American isolationists, opposed any help for the Soviets.  But the film's depiction was less of Republican Sen. Taft, and more on all the Roman Catholic prelates, pleading, give no assistance to the atheistic, communist government of the USSR.  Let it face Hitler alone.  Amon The church leaders was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (today, seemingly on the path to become a saint.)  Unmentioned, Jewish-Americans had learnt already that where Nazis conquered, Jews were in danger, a danger more deadly than they knew.  Many became more sympathetic to the Stalinist cause.

     The video shows FDR choosing to support Stalin, but only in words at first.  He send Harry Hopkins as his personal envoy, and Hopkins, 1 interpreter, and Stalin met for several hours.  Stalin conceded, his side would be losing till year's end, but it would survive and continued to fight with new strength the following year.  Meanwhile, it needed all kinds of supplies,  It would not collapse.  Hopkins took the paper re the Soviet military back to FDR, who decided, the Soviets would not collapse; if the US sent help, it would not be a waste.  And we begab ti send supplies to the Soviets as quickly as possible, and vast sums of all kinds of military and foods to the wounded red nation.

     I recognized the name of Harry Hopkins, as during the McCarthy era, he was often called a Communist.  I have no idea on that topic.  Surely, many Catholics in Europe would have felt safer with Hitler than with Stalin.  A Hitler victory would  have anniolated almost all Jews, and at a slower pace, many Poles and other Slavs, and other Untermenchen.  Often in real life, there are no easy answers; each choice is painful, no really good ones.  Just the best of the bad options.  HUGH MURRAY

NEW SLOGANS FOR POLITICAL RALLIES

 I'm suree most of you have heard, at university rallies or on tv, the slogan: "FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE.

What about the other one concerning the same territory, "FROM THE SEA TO THE RIVER, ISRAEL WILL BE HERE FOREVER.

Hugh Murray

JFK ASSASSINATION - POSSIBLE OVERLOOKED SOURCE - Hugh Murray

     Is it possible some info re the Kennedy assassination has lain dormant for over 70 years?  I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and it was rather conservative politically in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.  One example: during one summer, a La. legislative committee devoted at least 3 hours of radio time to their history of the American Civil Liberties Union.  The conclusion of the legislative committee - the ACLU was founded in the era of WWI by communists and it remains a red organization today, pushing communist programs like race mixing.  As school was out, I got to hear the whole program.

     The American Legion was a popular organization, and its members dominated LUAC, the Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee.  The Legion also sponsored civic educational programs like Pelican Boys State.

     In May of 1955 I completed my 2nd year at Warren Easton Senior High (grades 10, 11, and 12) with only one more to go to graduate.  I was also invited to represent Easton at Boys State that summer, which would be held in Baton Rouge.  We were to create a new state government and on the last day, debate a proposed law, which all hoped might influence the real legislators to do the same.  Informally, word got round that the Legion thought it wise to have a law promoting Reserve Officer Training in all public schools.  If Boys State passed such a "law," perhaps the real legislators would follow and do the same.  I was 16 years old, and most of us were about the same age.

     I did not know another young man at this conclave; I think all of us were essentially alone.  We had no programs of our own.  We would stay in the LSU dorm rooms in the football stadium, and work on policy at the State Capitol building or other state offices. At one of our first meetings for business, we had elections for this and that, speaking for or against someone we barely knew.  I was elected to the BS La Senate.  The next order of business - what would we debate on the big night at the end of the week?.  Most assumed it would be ROTC.  I rose and suggested another topic - just one year ago the US Supreme Court had overturned 60 years of precedent, with racial segregation, to rule that racial segregation should now end "with all deliberate speed".  Why not debate that?  My question was quickly answered when another Senator rose and declared we should not debate that, as I was the only one who favored it.  Then, I, and I'm sure many others, were similarly shocked when other senators rose to support my resolution.  I had not spoken with anyone prior, had not lobbied, yet there was support for this debate topic.  We decided to debate integration in summer 1953 in the Louisiana Senate.  I suspect that the American Legionnaires were not pleased.

    For the last night of that week, we all marched through the streets of Baton Rouge from LSU to the state capital, built under one of Huey Long's administrations.  In the real statte Senate we debated integration.  I wondered how the vote would go.  If we won, this would not be just local news, but international news.  I assume Legionnaires were wondering too.  At a certain point, a Legionnaire took the roster to announce that the Senate Chamber had to be evacuated immediately; there was no time for a vote on the debated measure!

     Skip to October  3, 1963.  I was teaching 5th grade to a small wonderful class at a new school.  After work that day I had arranged a game of tennis with a friend, so I did not get home till somewhat later.  My mother greeted me, "Hrmph, I thought they had rounded you up too."  My mom was not as sharp as she had been, but I wondered what she was talking about, and rushed to turn on tv news.  LUAC with the help of the new DA, Jim Garrison, had arrested the leader of the Southern Conference Education Fund (a pro-integration small organization, and I subscribed to its newsletter) and civil liberties attorney Ben Smith.  A good friend of mine from Tulane U. Jack Peebles, had joined Smith's law firm.  The media was happy with the raids on the subversives.  And though Garrison, the only elected official to try to expose the BS of the Warren Commission on JFK, his early actions as DA were not liberal.

     My question, where was LUAC during the summer of 1963?  That summer on WDSU radio Lee Oswald had an hour to discuss his politics.  Not a communist, but a Marxist he said, and more for an hour.  Oswald handed out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets, and even had a fight with an anti-Castro refugee from Cuba, for which Oswald was arrested.  Of course, the strange thing: Oswald was working on that project with staunch anti-communist Guy Banister, former leader of the FBI in Chicago, former Acting Superintendent of the NO Police, then his own detective agency, where the pro-Castro leaflets used by Oswald were stored, etc.  Why didn't the LUAC (Am Legion leaders) go after Oswald, instead of Ben Smith, SCEF, or possibly me!

     I suspect Banister must have told the Legion leaders of LUAC, NOT to go after Oswald.  Perhaps, he said more like, he's one of ours, or he works for one of the American agencies.  Could something like this still be in the dusty files of LUAC??

If Oswald were one of ours, was his defection to the USSR a fake one?  And was he being set up to be a PATSY?

HUGH MURRAY

For many in the South, race-mixing, integration was communism.  The American Legion conducted Bayou Boys State for black high school boys and in accord with Louisiana's segregation laws.

The LUAC raid in New Orleans occurred October 3, 1963.  November 2, 1963, South Vietnam's President Diem was killed and his regime in Saigon overthrown in a coup approved by America's CIA.  On November 22, 1963, another President was killed and his leadership overthrown in a coup.

I have no idea about the views of the American Legion nationally, but in NOLA, they tended to be conservative.  They were unhappy with Pres. Eisenhower when he supported statehood for Hawaii and Alaska.  Clearly they were not white enough to join the union.  Even after admission to statehood, the Legion's social group retained the name "40 and 8".  Like many others of that era, the Legion seemed to view integration as subversion. 

REMEMBER WORKING AT THE OLD WORLD TRADE CENTER -- HUGH MURRAY

  Re 9/11  2001

     I returned to NYC in the late 1970s from teaching for a year in Europe.  Had to find a place to stay and a job.  Luckily I quickly found a post with the state government, Workers Compensation agency, located on a number of floors of #2 World Trade Center.  The 2 huge sky scrapers were the tallest in the world for a time, so impressive, that Hollywood made a new King Kong film to show the world the new structures, that were higher than the Empire State Building which still stood further north on Manhattan.  the WTC was right by the southern tip of Manhattan, and the treat of where I worked, in winter the sun would set in the background while we could gaze down on the Statue of Liberty on the small island to the south.

     Perhaps around 1982 the Workers Comp agency, of about 5 floors, had a fired drill on the 35? floor.  I worked on the 38th.  We all gathered round the expert who spoke to us by the elevators.  I recall little of his discussion of what to do in case of fire, - except one very important point.  The elevators for the new buildings included an easier method to call the elevators.  Instead of pushing buttons, just the heat of your finger was sufficient to call the elevator to your floor.  Then the catch - the instructor informed us, in case of fire Never use the elevator as the heat of the fire would bring you to the floor with the fire.  A shocker.  Not too bad as we were on the floors of the 30s; what do you do if you work on the 110th floor?  I did not ask; but was happy I worked on the 38th.

     This is a problem we can assume the authorities knew of, and must have fixed before other problems drove in or flew in.

      All humans are much alike, and yet, we are all different.  I admit, I am somewhat off the beaten track.  It was the early 1980s, and sometimes, rather than take the subway to work, I would walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and the sun and clouds would engulf the 2 twin towers sometimes, sometimes making the appear almost purple.  Other days I took the tube for a short, hot, sweaty, smelly ride across the East River to the WTC stop.  One day got out the subway, went to the lower floor of the WTC to get a "local" elevator (for higher floors, there were other banks for those express lifts to the higher floors, fast.  This day, none of the elvators were working, and the area was packed with all the people wanting to get to their jobs up stairs;    I looked.  How long would it take for all the people waiting ahead of me before I could get near an elevator.  On occasion, I had walked down the 38 flights, so I knew where the stairs were.  Should I walk up?  I might be really late for work if the elevators begin to work.  Or stay?  I chose to walk up.  All was usual, until I reached the 9th floor; I looked up and there seemed to be no lights above me.  I kept walking up.  By the 11th floor, I put my hand in front of my face, and could not see it.

      On ground level there were many eateries for tourists and workers, but many who worked in the WTC chose to save money by bringing their own sandwiches and soda and ate on the stairs, which were no wider than average stairways.  Often paper plates and soda bottles were left on the stairs.  Now in total darkness, I had to use my foot and try to make sure each step up was safe.  To fall in this darkness could be catastrophic.  Meanwhile, I could still hear the swaying of the tower with the wind, a sound not heard on the floors, but in the stair wells, you knew it was not a ship but the tower build to sway.

     

When I reached the 38th floor, I had not trouble opening the door.  When I appeared, the early bird group, who had arrived prior to the elevator problem, was working normally.  Phones, everything was going smoothly.  The elevators were still not running, and I was the only one from the 9am group to arrive.  But I was shocked - how can the elevators be out, and there areno lights in the stairs?  To me this was dangerous.

     Workers Comp was about to move to a different location, one I wanted to avoid, so I planned to leave the job.  I spoke to our union rep about contacting OCEA  and hoped both of us would write them about this problem.  I left in 1983.

     A decade later, I was watching the nightly news and the big story was about an attempt to blow up the World Trade Center.  Apparently, explosives were in a truck in a parking garage below the buildings.  I was shocked to learn that the lights on the stairways were out (at least in some places), slowing evacuation.  As a result of the terror attack from below, there were many injured, as some deaths, and the need for costly repairs to the buildings.

      From Milwaukee I wrote a letter about the problems on the stairs, and sent it to 4 large newspapers, the NY Times, the NY Post, the NY Daily News, and Long Island Newsday.  3 of those papers printed my letter, all except the Times.  Still, with circulation into the millions, one can assume many read my letter, and would have demanded improvement on the stairs.

     I was still in Milwaukee when 9/11 occurred.  Truly shocking.  Afterward, a friend of mine of that era, Clark Rowley, wrote me:

Dear Hugh:  Read an article about the evacuation of the wtc.  Following quotes: "After the bombing, however, batteries were added to every other light fixture in stairwells in case power went out.  Handrails were painted with glow-in-the-dark paint, which also was used to mark a continuous stripe down the middle of the staircases. A public address system was added."  An earlier paragraph said: "In 1993, it took six hours to evacuate most of the Trade Center after terrorists detonated a bomb in an underground garage, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000.  This time, despite missteps, evacuation was cut by several hours.:  Your old letter helped urge them on."

    I do not maintain that my letter was the only impetus that pushed change in the stairs, and saved lived on 9/11, but I do think it helped.   Hugh Murray

    My letter to the NY Post was published Mon. 8 March 1993, p. 16.  The NY Daily News and Newsday published it on the same day or around that date.