Citizens for America

Citizens for America (CFA) was a United States conservative grass-roots organization founded by President Ronald Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet" (principally Jaquelin H. Hume, CEO of Basic American Foods of San Francisco, and including Southern California car dealer Holmes Tuttle and others) to support President Reagan's national defense and economic initiatives. CFA called itself "President Reagan's Lobby" and was led first by drugstore magnate Lewis E. Lehrman and later by Gerald P. Carmen, who had served as administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA) and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations mission in Geneva, Switzerland. CFA was organized as an IRS 501 (C) (3) and (4) non-profit. Among the early employees was Jack Abramoff, who was later terminated for cause.

Citizens for America staged an unprecedented meeting of anti-Communist rebel leaders called the "Democratic International", including Nicaraguan, Laotian, Angolan and Afghan (Mujahideen) rebels in June 1985 in Jamba, Angola. The meeting was held in the UNITA headquarters of Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi. The guerrilla leaders were presented with a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, and a letter from President Reagan supporting CFA was read, although the Reagan administration refused to officially support all of the guerrilla groups.

Marc Holtzman (who later ran for governor of Colorado) served as CFA's first executive director. Under Holtzman's tenure, CFA focused on promoting the Reagan economic and national security agenda, including the strategic defense initiative. Holtzman resigned in early 1985 and was replaced by Abramoff, who had been director of College Republicans. Lehrman fired Abramoff after only nine months due to his mismanagement of the organization’s $3 million budget and his hiring of friends.

...
Wikipedia