Joseph Buttinger

In 1972 the Austrian Government awarded him its Golden Order of Merit. According to the New York Times, the then-Chancellor of Austria, Bruno Kreisky, observed that `Mr. Buttinger was such a hero that if he had returned he would have become Chancellor.'

Under Buttinger's tenure, the Committee became covertly involved with the Central Intelligence Agency. In the 1950s, the IRC made an agreement with the CIA that they would take on projects which the US government did not want to openly be associated with in Vietnam. IRC official Harold Oram operated as a secret liaison between Buttinger and Allan Dulles.

In the 1950s, Buttinger and his wife subsidized the democratic socialist magazine Dissent, edited by Irving Howe. He also wrote "In the Twilight of Socialism", which was a history of Austrian Socialism in the years 1934–38.

During the 1950s, he aided North Vietnamese refugees in South Vietnam and took an abiding interest in the history and culture of that country. Initially a friend and supporter of South Vietnam's founder, Ngo Dinh Diem, Buttinger became disillusioned with Diem's dictatorial ways and renounced him.

In 1941, he and his wife arranged US visas for his brother Alois Buttinger and his family; one of the references for the visa application was signed by Alfred Einstein.

Buttinger was born into a working-class family and left school at age 13 to help support his family. He became a youth movement leader in Austria and, by the age of 24, was secretary of the Social Democratic Party. After being imprisoned for several months in 1934, he became chairman of the Socialist underground and a leader of the anti-Fascist movement. When Germany occupied Austria in 1938, he and his American-born wife Muriel Gardiner fled to Paris, where he was chairman of the exiled Socialists. In 1939, several months before the fall of France, the couple moved to the United States with Gardiner's daughter from a previous marriage, Connie, whom Joseph later adopted.

Joseph Buttinger (30 April 1906, Reichersbeuern, Germany – 4 March 1992, Queens, New York) was an Austrian politician and, after his immigration to the United States, an expert on East Asia. He co-founded the American Friends of Vietnam, a Cold War lobbying group.