An embarrassing interview has exposed rifts at the National Endowment for Democracy
The biggest public relations fiasco in the history of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has resulted in two senior officials ending up fired and a “civil war” of sorts between the old neoconservative cadres and the new “woke” management, according to documents obtained by The Grayzone.
The fiasco in question was the phone call between the NED vice-president for communications Leslie Aun and the Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Alex Rubinstein, which the independent outlet published in May 2023. Aun initiated the call to address Rubinstein’s description of the Endowment as a “CIA cutout,” but ended up saying “I don’t know” a lot instead.
On Tuesday, the Grayzone published several emails between Michael Allen – who used to be the editor of the NED’s ‘Democracy Digest’ blog – and the Endowment’s founding president Carl Gershman,…