Helen Howell Moorhead

Helen Armstrong Howell Moorhead was an American Anti-opium advocate who was for many years the Chair of the Opium Research Committee of the Foreign Policy Association (FPA), emerging as what historians say to be "perhaps the most important non-state actor in the formation of international drug control." She was deeply entrenched in what historians call the "technical league" of policy professionals that shaped the League of Nations, and was a key figure in creating the Opium Advisory Committee. She was the first American woman to address an international opium conference at Geneva, and attended the three of these international opium conferences under the auspices of the League of Nations. She was present at the Second International Opium Convention and became heavily involved with the Permanent Central Opium Board.

From the early days of the League of Nations, the FPA had functioned as an unofficial surrogate for the U.S. government on opium issues: conducting public relations, lobbying elite opinion, and generating policy ideas. Some historians suggest that Moorhead, like the members of the Inner Circle she directed, were creating moral panic in the United States to achieve political objectives.

Biography

Early life Helen Howell Moorhead was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, into a prosperous family. She studied at Bryn Mawr College and later at the University of Grenoble in France. She married Dr. John Joseph Moorhead in 1907. They settled in New York City, where census records show that she and her husband lived comfortably with domestic staff and an adopted daughter, Anne. In her personal letters, Moorhead occasionally mentioned family life; one note from a 1930 voyage to Egypt referred humorously to her daughter's growth and the need for “a new set of clothes” to be purchased in Paris. Their relationship began to sour after the war.

Foreign Policy Association After the war she joined the newly created Foreign Policy Association (FPA) in 1923. The FPA sought to encourage public understanding of international affairs and to promote cooperation among nations. Its activities, research publications, public lectures, and early radio broadcasts, helped popularize foreign policy discussion in the United States during the Interwar period.

Moorhead was an active participant in a series of crucial, choreographed meetings held between December 1942 and March 1943, which were designed to suggest U.S. government backing and build a Pacific consensus to isolate the British and Dutch. She was part of a sophisticated diplomatic effort to pressure the British government. In one instance, she was involved in an overture through the FPA to the British Council of Churches, fishing for intelligence on Whitehall's discussions.

Written works

International administration of narcotic drugs 1828-1934 Narcotics Control under the UN International Narcotics Control: 1939-1946