Dante Fascell

Dante Bruno Fascell (deceased 1998) was "a Representative from Florida; born in Bridgehampton, Long Island, Suffolk County, N.Y., March 9, 1917."

"Legal attaché to the State legislative delegation from Dade County 1947-1950; member of the State house of representatives 1950-1954; appointed by the President to represent the United States at the Twenty-fourth General Assembly of the United Nations, 1969; elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-fourth and to the eighteen succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1955-January 3, 1993); chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Ninety-eighth through One Hundred Second Congresses); was not a candidate for renomination in 1992 to the One Hundred Third Congress; practiced law in Miami; presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President William Jefferson Clinton in 1998." 

Writing in 2005, Philip Agee notes that "In February 1967 a large portion of the CIA’s covert financing system collapsed when the U.S. press revealed the names of foundations used and of many of the subsidized foreign organizations. Two months after this scandal Congressman Dante Fascell of Miami, well known for his links with the CIA and the Cuban exile community, proposed in Congress the establishment of a private foundation to openly finance foreign private organizations that until then had been financed secretly by the CIA. But at that time Fascell’s proposal failed to win support, and the CIA continued as the arm of the government responsible for covert actions like those that provoked the 1973 military coup in Chile." 

Dante "played a key role in the founding of the National Endowment for Democracy and served on its Board of Directors from 1983 to 1989." He was also a "presiding figure behind the Inter-American Foundation's founding." 

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) established the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program in "honor of the two principal founders of NED, former president Ronald Reagan and the late congressman Dante Fascell, the program enables democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and enhance their ability to promote democratic change." 

Dante had also been a member of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority's Task Force on Foreign Policy and Defense and a founding member of the American Political Foundation.
 * Former Director (1985), Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
 * Former Board Member (1989), Center for Democracy