Was designated as a Communist front organization in 1951
Disestablished in 1956
During the Korean War, the American Peace Crusade (APC) was the U.S. branch of the World Peace Council, which was originally called the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace -- formed in 1948 to support the Soviet Union and promote the spread of Communism around the world. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson denounced the APC as a Communist front organization in 1951.
To make its case that America's involvement in the Korean War (1950-53) was immoral and unjust, the APC distributed widely Howard Fast's Korean Lullaby,a fourteen-page pamphlet containing three passionately anti-war poems written by Fast, a member of the Communist party. In one of the poems, Fast gave voice to the thoughts of a young Jewish American soldier who likened his own role in Korea to that of a Nazi storm trooper of the World War II era: "I was brave, and asked no questions, and never asked to know what I, a Jew and kin to those six million whom Hitler slew, was doing here, in this strange land [Korea], making a desert and a graveyard of this sunny place where people lived and worked -- and never asked what good dead children did in freedom's struggle." Vietnam War poet W. D. Ehrhart writes of the pamphlet: "…[Fast] argues that the war is really being fought by Western capitalists to fuel the economy and stave off depression, and he puts 'free world' in quotes to make sure we get his point." This was precisely the APC perspective on the War.
The American Peace Crusade was associated with American Veterans for Peace (AVP), which was founded in June 1951 to oppose American participation in the Korean War, support improved relations with the Soviet Union, and promote a leftist social agenda. The APC also worked closely with the National Council of American Soviet Friendship (NCASF), a Communist front composed mostly of professionals who were sympathetic to Soviet socialism and consistently supported American disarmament movements.
The American Peace Crusade was disestablished in 1956.
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