Freedom House: an exchange.

While preparing his article about Freedom House ("Freedom House, Rocked," April 2), John J. Miller contacted a Cuban-American organization that partners with Freedom House to promote democracy in Cuba. In an infelicitously worded e-mail, Miller inquired as to whether Freedom House had "gone soft" on Fidel Castro. He was informed that Freedom House remains stalwart in the cause of Cuban freedom. Yet this detail never made it into the article. Presumably, testimony to Freedom House's continuing commitment to Cuban freedom interfered with Miller's narrative of an organization that has lost its political clarity.

This is not the only example of Miller's simply casting aside crucial details about what Freedom House actually is and does. He writes at length, and with obvious disapproval, about Freedom House's use of American-government grants to promote democracy abroad. Nowhere, unfortunately, does he explain how this (and other) money is put to use. He does not mention our global campaign for human rights in North Korea; a bilingual Farsi-English Internet democracy journal that is read by many thousands of Iranians; a project to assist the democratic opposition in Zimbabwe; assistance to democracy advocates in Venezuela; efforts to defend and expand the rights of women in countries where Islamic radicals are seeking to roll back what minimal rights currently exist; and, oh yes, a longstanding project to assist the beleaguered band of democratic dissidents in Cuba.

Nor did Miller see fit to mention those who have made Freedom House a principal hate object--a list that includes China, Cuba, and, most vehemently, Russia, where Putin-regime insiders have launched a campaign to demonize and discredit us for our clearly written descriptions of the decline of freedom in Russia.

Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea--these are not simply among the world's most repressive states, they are also regimes that pose major challenges to American interests, international peace, and the future of freedom. The promotion of democratic change in these societies is at the core of the Freedom House mission today as it has been since our founding 66 years ago.

Yet Miller simply omitted any discussion of what we do on a daily basis to support democratic activists in many of the world's most repressive societies, apparently because it did not support his thesis.

Finally, in an ad hominem attack on our chairman, Miller conveniently forgot to mention that Dr. Peter Ackerman is a scholar and activist well known worldwide for his books and documentary films about strategy and tactics of non-violent civic action to challenge and overcome dictators.

Arch Puddington

Director of Research

Freedom House

New York, N.Y.

I am troubled by the method and the substance of Miller's article. Regarding the method, it relies on damning quotes from "a former Freedom House employee," "a current board member," "another former employee," "one insider," "one activist who was involved in these deliberations," and "a trustee." Why all the anonymity? Is Freedom House like the Mafia--if you talk about it, you die? And where are the quotes from Freedom House's spokesmen, giving their side of the story?

As for the substance, Freedom House's strength was never its "edgy qualities," contrary to the claim of one of the anonymous sources. Its strength always was and remains the annual Survey of Freedom. Far from having any particular ideological bent, much less any edginess, the virtue of the Survey is its painstaking objectivity. This yields results that provide the essential starting-point for thoughtful discussions of the state of human rights, freedom, or democracy in the world or its parts.

Miller takes a sentence from the Survey regarding democracy in America to mean that Freedom House applauded the Democrats' victory in 2006. I interpreted it to mean that the changes in Congress showed that the advantages of incumbency are sometimes overstated. There were, as it happens, a couple of other phrases in this year's Survey that did not seem right to me, and I conveyed my thoughts to Freedom House. But these were minor. The essence of the Survey is not in its narrative commentary but its careful numerical ratings of each country. These continue to reflect the best scholarly analysis. They remain the bedrock of our knowledge of freedom in the world. For this, and for its advocacy of freedom, Freedom House remains among the most valuable NGOs.

Joshua Muravchik

American Enterprise Institute 

Academic Advisor to the

Survey of Freedom

Washington, D.C.

John J. Miller responds: Arch Puddington and Joshua Muravchik are good men and I interviewed both of them for my article. Their criticisms, however, are underwhelming.

"Why all the anonymity?" asks Josh. Well, perhaps it's because Freedom House silenced Arch five years ago after he wrote an eye-opening essay on left-wing human-rights groups for Commentary, as the article reported. (Interestingly, Arch avoids discussing that incident here, even though I reported on it.) These days, Freedom House isn't exactly a paragon of free expression.

Yet the claim that the article relies too heavily on unnamed sources is ridiculous. The hardest-hitting quotes--by my lights, the ones attributed to former board member Nina Rosenwald and former employee Nina Shea--are clearly identified. "And where are the quotes from Freedom House's spokesmen?" They're in the article as well: comments from executive director Jennifer Windsor and trustee P.J. O'Rourke. Did we read the same piece?

I don't dispute Josh's contention that the "Freedom in the World" survey is an important publication. The reason I highlighted the sentence about U.S. elections in the most recent edition is twofold: 1) It's extremely peculiar, and 2) people have been talking about it (i.e., I didn't discover this line on my own--I was pointed toward it by astonished Freedom House watchers).

Arch criticizes the theme of the article, but not by tackling any of its specific points. There is no rebuttal to the vital section on the Center for Religious Freedom, which lies at the heart of the article. Nor does he quarrel with my account of problems with the Transatlantic Democracy Network and the New Generations of Advocates program.

Instead, he wishes that I had written more about Freedom House and Cuba. As it happens, I looked into this question and received mixed responses from a variety of sources. A couple of them, including Arch, said that Freedom House continues a strong tradition of battling Castro's dictatorship. A couple of others, also in a position to know, were less sure. Clearly, a judgment call was in order. I decided to mention Cuba only once, in a sentence that credits Freedom House with recognizing it as one of the world's "foes of freedom." Incidentally, when I asked Arch to provide an example of Freedom House's Cuba activities, he described a certain initiative, said that media exposure might hurt it, and then urged me not to write about it.

Arch also complains that I overlook other examples of Freedom House's worthy activities. I don't have space to address them all, but take the case of the Farsi-English web publication, which is called Gozaar. In our interview, Arch encouraged me to examine it. I'm in no position to rate the influence or effectiveness of Gozaar, so I contacted a couple of distinguished Iran experts. One of them had never heard of it; the other had heard of it but had not seen it. Their collective lack of knowledge impressed me.

I did take my own look at Gozaar, including its Q&A session with an Iranian activist named Mehrdad Darvishpour, who imparts wisdom such as this: "In a world where Islamic fundamentalists with their blind terrorism and neoconservatives with their warmongering bravura demonstrate the most brutal aspects of an authoritarian patriarchy ..."

That's called moral equivalence, and there was a time when Freedom House recognized it.