To further safeguard the elections, Lansdale set up an OPC-funded organization, the National Movement for Free Elections, known by its acronym, NAMFREL. It was ostensibly run by three Filipino war veterans. Its real guiding light, in addition to Lansdale himself, was another CIA operative, named Gabriel L. Kaplan. He first came to Manila in 1951 on behalf of a CIA-backed Committee for a Free Asia, which eventually changed its name to the Asia Foundation. Later he would masquerade as the representative of yet another CIA front, the Catherwood Foundation.
