Dr. Stephen Mumford: in his own words

Asked recently why he promotes quinacrine sterilization so avidly, Dr. Stephen Mumford, president of the Center for Research on Population and Security (CRPS), responded that he is simply seeking to better protect women’s health in the developing world. Indeed, this has almost become the standard answer of prominent quinacrine proponents. It might also explain why CRPS cosponsored the large Feminist Expo, held in Washington DC in February 1995.1

However energetically Mumford advances “maternal health” as the reason for his quinacrine activism, he was not always possessed of such altruistic concerns. In his 1977 book, Population Growth Control: The Next Move is America’s, Mumford had this to say about the proper motivations for U.S. population control efforts:

We are not appealing to altruism here. We’re talking about our survival. Remember, we are highly dependent on developing countries for our industrial raw materials — our survival. Peace (external and internal) and order in developing countries is essential in order to insure an uninterrupted flow of these raw materials.2

In another place in the same book he wrote:

Clearly an effort of unprecedented proportions is required to halt world population growth. Without massive intervention, the world’s course over the next 50 years is now clear. The stakes are high and so is the risk of losing. Massive intervention is an absolute must — our survival is at stake.3

When considering which government institution should be charged with such a pressing task, Mumford is also clear. Send in the military!

Considering the human prospects and its implications for the U.S. and all Americans, it is inconceivable that any organization other than the Defense Department would be selected for the intervention effort. Time is literally running out, and this worldwide effort must necessarily be the largest and most complex ever undertaken by man. We have no alternatives but to assign the responsibility for formulating and delivering this massive and complex intervention effort to our most capable organization — the U.S. Military.”4

In a more recent book, The Life and Death of NSSM 200, Mumford not only defends the widely discredited “Kissinger memorandum” which calls for massive population control in the developing countries, but blames the alleged “failure” of that policy on a Vatican conspiracy.

In materials promoting the book, Mumford wrote:

When implemented, the NSSM recommendations would have launched a massive international attack, with strong U.S. leadership, on the steadily worsening dilemma of the world’s unprecedented and unbridled population growth.”

The plan would have worked, too, Mumford argues, had clerics in Rome not mounted a “sophisticated” defense and “torpedoed” the scheme. They embarked swiftly on a mission for “infiltrating and manipulating the American democratic process” and managed to “kill the political will of the United States to overcome the overpopulation problem.” Mumford ends: “We must publicly identify the arch-enemy of population growth control, and attack it directly. Public enemy number one is clearly the Vatican.”5

Most recently, when confronted by the BBC with questions about his quinacrine work and his links with anti-immigration and other xenophobic organizations, Mumford had this to say on camera:

“I think that the Federation of American Immigration Reform is a highly patriotic institution, that is correct. I mean, very few Americans agree that we should have open borders and FAIR’s position is that we should not have open borders and that has been the focus of their efforts since they were created. I’m very happy to identify with the Federation for American Immigration Reform .… I don’t want to live under those conditions [the conditions of a developing country.]”6

No matter what Dr. Mumford claims his motivations for quinacrine to be, his previous work makes it clear that his priority is to limit the number of people in the developing world no matter the cost.