Reece Committee

The Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives between 1952 and 1954. The committee was originally created by House Resolution 561 during the 82nd Congress. The committee investigated the use of funds by tax-exempt organizations (non-profit organizations) to see if they were being used to support communism. The committee was alternatively known as the Cox Committee and the Reece Committee after its two chairmen, Edward E. Cox and B. Carroll Reece.

In April 1952, the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations (or just the Cox Committee Investigation), led by Edward E. Cox, of the House of Representatives began an investigation of the "educational and philanthropic foundations and other comparable organizations which are exempt from federal taxes to determine whether they were using their resources for the purposes for which they were established, and especially to determine which such foundations and organizations are using their resources for un-American activities and subversive activities or for purposes not in the interest or tradition of the United States."

In the fall of 1952 all foundations with assets of $10 million or more received a questionnaire covering virtually every aspect of their operations. The foundations cooperated willingly. In the committee's final report, submitted to Congress in January 1953, endorsed the loyalty of the foundations. "So far as we can ascertain, there is little basis for the belief expressed in some quarters that foundation funds are being diverted from their intended use," the report said.

Unhappy with the Cox Committee's conclusions, Rep. Reece pushed for a continuation of its work. In April 1954, the House authorized the Reece Committee. Unlike its predecessor, which limited its attention to generalities, the Reece Committee mounted a comprehensive inquiry into both the motives for establishing foundations and their influence on public life. The investigative inquiry was headed by Norman Dodd, a former banker.

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