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The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
Frances Stonor Stonor Saunders
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Format: Hardcover, 528pp.
ISBN: 156584596X
Publisher: New Press
Pub. Date: March 2000
bn.com sales rank: 18,775
ABOUT THE BOOK
Annotation
The "rivetingly told" (Times Literary Supplement) story of the CIA's Cold
Warcultural operations, short-listed for the Guardian First Book
Award. In
The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders presents for the first time
the shocking evidence that the CIA infiltrated every niche of the cultural
sphere during the postwar years. In a "hammer-blow of a book" (The
Spectator, London) drawing together recently declassified documents and
exclusive interviews, the author narrates the extraordinary story of a
secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual
freedom in the West were instruments of America's secret service. The
CIA's front organizations and the philanthropic foundations that channeled
its money organized conferences, founded magazines, ran congresses,
mounted exhibitions, arranged concerts, and flew symphony orchestras
around the world. Many of the period's foremost intellectuals, artists,
and philanthropists appear in the book: Isaiah Berlin, Clement Greenberg,
Sidney Hook, Arthur Koestler, Irving Kristol, Robert Lowell, Henry Luce,
André Malraux, Mary McCarthy, Reinhold Neibuhr, George Orwell, Jackson
Pollock, Nelson Rockefeller, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., and Stephen Spender, among others. While many were
unwitting participants in the CIA's cultural operation, others were
willing collaborators. In this expose of covert patronage unprecedented in
modern history, recently short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award,
Saunders has created "a crucial story" (The Times, London) that is "quite
unputdownable" (Literary Review).
>From The Publisher
"In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders presents for the first
time the shocking evidence that the CIA infiltrated every niche of the
cultural sphere during the postwar years. In a book that draws together
recently declassified documents and exclusive interviews, the author
narrates the extraordinary story of a secret campaign in which some of the
most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West became
instruments of the American government. The CIA's front organizations and
the philanthropic foundations that channeled its money also organized
conferences, founded magazines, ran congresses, mounted exhibitions,
arranged concerts, and flew symphony orchestras around the world." "Many
of the period's foremost intellectuals and artists appear in the
book: Isaiah Berlin, Clement Greenberg, Sidney Hook, Arthur Koestler,
Irving Kristol, Robert Lowell, Henry Luce, Andre Malraux, Mary McCarthy,
Reinhold Neibuhr, George Orwell, Jackson Pollock, Bertrand Russell,
Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Stephen Spender, among
others. While many were unwitting participants in the CIA's cultural
operation, others were willing collaborators."--BOOK JACKET.
Reviews
>From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly
Drawing on recently declassified documents and extensive interviews,
Saunders has assembled a captivating, authoritative history of the CIA's
secret campaign to turn American art into anti-Soviet cultural
propaganda. Mindful of the western European intelligentsia's fascination
with Marxism, the CIA gave millions of dollars to American arts
organizations, largely through a front group called the Congress for
Cultural Freedom, which lasted until 1967; at its peak, it "had offices in
35 countries..., published over 20 prestige magazines, held art
exhibitions..., organized high-profile international conferences, and
rewarded musicians and artists with prizes and public
performances." Sometimes wittingly and sometimes not, artists and
intellectuals--from Aaron Copland to Leontyne Price, W.H. Auden to
Gertrude Stein--were recruited as soldiers in this "psychological
warfare" against communism. Saunders, an independent film producer who
lives in London, points out that this now-unthinkable cooperation from
major artists and producers was possible because the CIA hadn't yet
acquired the sinister reputation it gained in the '60s, when its covert,
and often bungled, international actions became publicly known. The only
flaw in this thoroughly documented book, which has been shortlisted for
the London Guardian's First Book Award, is that the story is so richly
convoluted that occasionally the larger drama gets lost in its
overwhelming details. Indeed, an entire book could have been made of the
chapter explicating the CIA's marketing of abstract expressionism (a
surefire way to wow impressionable European aesthetes tired of socialist
realism). Nonetheless, this well-researched work remains a must for art
historians interested in how the American avant-garde thrived during the
McCarthy era. B&w photos. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business
Information.|
FROM THE BOOK
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction 1
1 Exquisite Corpse 7
2 Destiny's Elect 32
3 Marxists at the Waldorf 45
4 Democracy's Deminform 57
5 Crusading's the Idea 73
6 'Operation Congress' 85
7 Candy 105
8 Cette Fete Americaine 113
9 The Consortium 129
10 The Truth Campaign 146
11 The New Consensus 157
12 Magazine 'X' 165
13 The Holy Willies 190
14 Music and Truth, ma non troppo 213
15 Ransom's Boys 234
16 Yanqui Doodles 252
17 The Guardian Furies 279
18 When Shrimps Learn to Whistle 302
19 Achilles' Heel 314
20 Cultural NATO 327
21 Caesar of Argentina 344
22 Pen Friends 359
23 Literary Bay of Pigs 369
24 View from the Ramparts 381
25 That Sinking Feeling 391
26 A Bad Bargain 407
