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Introduction: Journals of Freedom?

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Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War

Abstract

The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) is one of the most controversial institutions of the Cold War. Founded in 1950 to unite intellectuals against the repressive demands of Communist doctrine, it promoted its cause of Western cultural integrity until it was revealed in the 1960s that it had benefited from large-scale funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and its independence and motives were seriously questioned. Up till now, most studies of the CCF have focused on the CIA connection and the principal actors who ran the Congress in America and Europe. Aiming to broaden understanding of the CCF’s cultural legacy, this volume examines the global reach of its most important form of influence: its journals and magazines, published on five continents, several of which are still in print today. By investigating the circumstances of their creation, the editors who ran them, and their cultural significance in their national contexts, this volume breaks new ground in exploring the global impact of the Congress from the 1950s to the present day.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The authors would like to thank Maren Roth and the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies for their assistance with this research.

  2. 2.

    See, for instance, Richard Taruskin, ‘In from the Cold’, TLS, 5 August 2016, pp. 3–5, on a new biography of Nicolas Nabokov.

  3. 3.

    For a useful overview of some of the major CCF histories, see Eric Pullin, ‘The Culture of Funding Culture: The CIA and the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, in Christopher R. Moran and Christopher J. Murphy (eds.), Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US. Historiography since 1945 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013).

  4. 4.

    Of the 118 invited delegates, only six were women; see Jo Catling, A History of Women’s Writing in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 171.

  5. 5.

    Arthur Schlesinger Jr, The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949).

  6. 6.

    See Giles Scott-Smith, ‘The “Masterpieces of the 20th Century” Festival and the Congress for Cultural Freedom: Origins and Consolidation, 1947–1952’, Intelligence and National Security 15 (2000), pp. 121–143.

  7. 7.

    See Harm Langenkamp, ‘Cosmopolitan Counterpoint: Overt and Covert Musical Warfare and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War, 1945–1961’, PhD dissertation, Utrecht University, 2014.

  8. 8.

    On the Iowa Writers’ Club and links with the CIA, see Eric Bennett, ‘How Iowa Flattened Literature’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 February 2014, available online at <http://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Iowa-Flattened-Literature/144531/>.

  9. 9.

    Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe (New York: Free Press, 1989), p. xiii.

  10. 10.

    Ibid. p. 245.

  11. 11.

    Michael Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive? Der Kongres für kulturelle Freiheit und die Deutschen (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1998), p. 20.

  12. 12.

    Pierre Grémion, Intelligence de l’Anticommunisme: Le Congrès pour la liberté de la culture à Paris 1950–1975 (Paris: Fayard, 1995), p. 12.

  13. 13.

    Conor Cruise O’Brien, Writers and Politics: Essays and Criticism (London: Faber, 1967); Christopher Lasch, The Agony of the American Left (New York: Knopf, 1969).

  14. 14.

    Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta, 1999), p. 5.

  15. 15.

    Timothy Whithe, ‘Cold War Historiography: New Evidence behind Traditional Typographies’, International Social Science Review 75 (2000), pp. 35–46.

  16. 16.

    Sarah Miller Harris, The CIA and the Congress for Cultural Freedom in the Early Cold War: The Limits of Making Common Cause (London: Routledge, 2016).

  17. 17.

    Volker Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).

  18. 18.

    Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Postwar American Hegemony (London: Routledge, 2002).

  19. 19.

    Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? (London: Frank Cass, 2004), and The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).

  20. 20.

    Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, p. 113.

  21. 21.

    Peter Benson, Black Orpheus: Transition and Modern Cultural Awakening in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Takeshi Matsuda, Soft Power and Its Perils: U.S. Cultural Policy in Early Postwar Japan and Permanent Dependency (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007); Jean Franco, The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America in the Cold War (Harvard University Press, 2009); Maria Eugenia Mudrovcic, Nombres en litigio. La guerras culturas en América Latina (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo, 2010); Deborah Cohn, The Latin American Literary Boom and US Nationalism during the Cold War (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2012); Patrick Iber, Neither Peace Nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America (Harvard University Press, 2015); Peter Kalliney, Modernism in a Global Context (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016).

  22. 22.

    Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney and Fabio Lanza (eds.), De-Centering Cold War History: Local and Global Change (London: Routledge, 2013).

  23. 23.

    For studies of individual journals, see Pierre Grémion, ‘Preuve dans le Paris de Guerre Froide’, Vingtièma Siècle 13 (1987); Pierre Grémion (ed.), Preuve. Une Revue Europeéne à Paris (Paris: Julliard, 1989); Giles Scott-Smith, ‘“A Radical Democratic Political Offensive”, Melvin J. Lasky, Der Monat, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, Journal of Contemporary History 35 (2000); Marco Martin, Orwell, Koestler und all die anderen: Melvin J. Lasky und ‘Der Monat’ (Asendorf: MUT-Verlag, 1999); Joachim Gmehling, Kritik des Nationalsozialismus und Sowjetkommunismus in der Zeitschrift ‘Der Monat’, PhD dissertation, Hamburg University, 2010; Felix Tweraser, ‘Paris Calling Vienna: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and Friedrich Torberg’s Editorship of “Forum”’, Austrian Studies 13 (2005); Antonio Donno, La Cultura americana nelle riviste italiane del dopoguerra: ‘Tempo Presente’ (1956–1968) (Milella, 1978); Tomasso Edoardo Frosini, Tempo Presente: Antologia 1956–1968: Gli scritti più significativi di una rivista simbolo (Liberal Libri, 1998); Paola Carlucci, ‘Tempo Presente (1956–1968) e il Congress for Cultural Freedom. Alcuni Appunti per la Storia di una rivista’, in Menozzi Daniele, Mauro Moretti, and Roberto Pertici (eds.), Culture e libertà. Studi di storia in onore di Roberto Vivarelli (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006); Elena Aronova, ‘The Congress for Cultural Freedom, Minerva and the Quest for Instituting “Science Studies” in the Age of Cold War’, Minerva 40 (2012); Elizabeth Holt, ‘“Bread or Freedom”: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and the Arabic Literary Journal Ḥiwār (1962–67)’, Journal of Arabic Literature 44 (2013); Maria Eugenia Mudrovcic, Mundo Nuevo. Cultura y Guerra Fria en década del 60 (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo, 1997); Russell St. Clair Cobb, Our Men in Paris? ‘Mundo Nuevo’, the Cuban Revolution, and the Politics of Cultural Freedom (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007).

  24. 24.

    François Bondy, 27 November 1950, International Association of Cultural Freedom Records, Box 56, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago (hereafter IACF).

  25. 25.

    ‘Réunion du Comité Exécutif’, 9–11 February 1951, Box 56, IACF.

  26. 26.

    ‘Réunion du Comité Exécutif’, 31 May 1952, Box 57, IACF.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.

  28. 28.

    See Scott-Smith, Politics of Apolitical Culture.

  29. 29.

    James Porter, ‘Intertextuality and the Discourse Community’, Rhetoric Review 5 (1986), pp. 34–36.

  30. 30.

    John Hunt to Melvin Lasky, 27 January 1960, Correspondence: John Hunt, Melvin Lasky Papers, Correspondence Files, Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies, Munich (hereafter MLP).

  31. 31.

    Michael Josselson to Melvin Lasky, 16 July [1961?], Correspondence: Michael Josselson, MLP.

  32. 32.

    See Giles Scott-Smith, Politics of Apolitical Culture, for the original hegemonic interpretation of the CCF.

  33. 33.

    Manès Sperber, ‘Critique des Revues du Congres’, 29 January 1956, Box 57, IACF.

  34. 34.

    Wilford, The CIA, p. 290.

  35. 35.

    Compare, for instance, Achal Prabhala, Arshia Sattar, and Laeeq Futehally (eds.), The Best of Quest (Mumbai: Tranquebar, 2012); Russell St. Clair Cobb, Our Men in Paris? ‘Mundo Nuevo’, the Cuban Revolution, and the Politics of Cultural Freedom (University of Texas at Austin, 2007).

  36. 36.

    See Stonor Saunders, p. 217.

  37. 37.

    Nicolas Nabokov, ‘Comments on Editorial Meeting Report’, enclosure in Michael Josselson to Melvin Lasky, 14 March 1955, Correspondence: Michael Josselson, MLP.

  38. 38.

    Michael Josselson to Melvin Lasky, n.d. [1957], Correspondence: Michael Josselson, MLP.

  39. 39.

    IACF Board Meeting, 4 December 1967, Box 60, IACF.

  40. 40.

    Shepard Stone to Melvin Lasky, 11 May 1970, Correspondence: Shepard Stone, MLP.

  41. 41.

    Boxes 56–60, IACF.

  42. 42.

    Keith Botsford, interview with the author, London, 5 November 2016.

  43. 43.

    On Jargy, see <http://www.amar-foundation.org/simon-jargy/>.

  44. 44.

    ‘Réunion du Comité Exécutif’, 26–27 November 1953, Box 57, IACF.

  45. 45.

    Executive Committee, 9 October 1965, Box 60, IACF.

  46. 46.

    Josselson to Stone, 26 January 1968, Box 356, Folder 9, IACF. The editors thank Audra Wolfe for bringing this letter to their attention.

  47. 47.

    Greg Barnhisel, Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), p. 137.

  48. 48.

    See Sven Hanuschek, Therese Hörnigk, and Christine Malende (eds.), Schriftsteller als Intellektuelle: Politik und Literatur im Kalten Krieg (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2000); Scott-Smith, Politics of Apolitical Culture.

  49. 49.

    Raymond Aron, Zurich, February 1962, insert in Michael Josselson to Melvin Lasky, 19 November 1964, Correspondence: Michael Josselson, MLP.

  50. 50.

    See Alessandro Brogi, Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

    Brogi, Confronting America.

  51. 51.

    Andrew Rubin, Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture, and the Cold War (Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 47–73.

  52. 52.

    Unnamed ‘CIA agent’ in Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? p. 216.

  53. 53.

    Pullin, ‘The Culture of Funding Culture’, p. 59.

  54. 54.

    Michael Josselson to Stephen Spender, 17 September 1966, Correspondence: CCF 1966, MLP.

  55. 55.

    Stephen Spender to Frank Kermode, 3 May 1966, Correspondence: Stephen Spender, MLP.

  56. 56.

    John Thompson, director of the Farfield Foundation, answering the question of Stephen Spender whether the Foundation was a CIA front. Stephen Spender to Michael Josselson, 10 September 1966, Correspondence: CCF 1966, MLP.

  57. 57.

    See Barnhisel, pp. 157–158: ‘It is important here not to conflate “CCF influence” with “CIA influence”.’

  58. 58.

    ‘IACF Budgets 1973–1977’, Leo Labedz papers, File Series: Survey Magazine, Box 34, Folder 4, Hoover Institution archives. The IACF’s 1973 accounts show that the Ford was providing the bulk of its funds, with additional contributions from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Volkswagen, Thyssen, and the Aspen Institute.

  59. 59.

    See <http://freedomfirst.in/freedom-first/about-iccf.aspx>.

  60. 60.

    Coleman, pp. 195–196.

  61. 61.

    Roderick MacFarquhar, ‘The China Quarterly and the History of the PRC’, China Quarterly 188 (December 2006), p. 1092.

  62. 62.

    Priscilla Roberts, ‘Rebuilding a Relationship: British Cultural Diplomacy towards China, 1967–80,’ in Greg Kennedy and Christopher Tuck (eds.), British Propaganda and Wars of Empire: Influencing Friend and Foe 1900–2010 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 196–197; Roderick MacFarquhar, ‘The Founding of the China Quarterly,’ China Quarterly 143 (September 1995), p. 693. China Quarterly was the only major CCF journal (apart from Censorship, which only lasted three years) for which it proved impossible to find an author for a chapter study. The editorial office, based at SOAS for almost fifty years, was unable to confirm the existence of any archive, let alone grant access to it, thereby preventing a commissioned study from taking place.

  63. 63.

    See <http://newafricanmagazine.com/category/life/>.

  64. 64.

    David Hill (ed.), Beyond the Horizon: Short Stories from Contemporary Indonesia (Clayton: Monash Asian Institute, 1998), pp. xix–xx.

  65. 65.

    David Hill, Journalism and Politics in Indonesia: A Critical Biography of Mochtar Lubis (1922–2004) as Editor and Author (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 112–120.

  66. 66.

    See <http://www.horison-online.com>.

  67. 67.

    Francisco Sionil José, ‘A memoir of the Cold War: How I was labeled a “communist” and a “CIA agent”’, The Philippine Star, 3 May 2015.

  68. 68.

    See Ivan Kats, ‘The Story of the Obor Foundation: Can the Indonesian experience be replicated?’ Logos 2 (1991) pp. 127–132. Coleman makes a brief reference to Kats and Indonesia (p. 208), but neither Grèmion nor Stonor Saunders refer to him.

  69. 69.

    Francisco Sionil José, ‘The American Response to the Philippine Revolution,’ Solidarity (February 1971), p. 5.

  70. 70.

    Michael Hochgeschwender, ‘A Battle of Ideas: The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) in Britain, Italy, France, and West Germany’, in Dominik Geppert (ed.), The Postwar Challenge: Cultural, Social, and Political Change in Western Europe, 1945–1958 (Oxford: OUP, 2003), p. 328.

  71. 71.

    Pierre Grémion (ed.), Preuves: une revue européenne à Paris (Paris: Julliard, 1989), p. 19.

Bibliography

  • ———. The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Political Economy of American Hegemony 1945–1955. London: Taylor & Francis, 2002b.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of History, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Giles Scott-Smith

  2. Amerika-Institut, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany

    Charlotte A. Lerg

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  1. Giles Scott-Smith
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Correspondence to Giles Scott-Smith .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of History, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Giles Scott-Smith

  2. Amerika-Institut, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany

    Charlotte A. Lerg

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Scott-Smith, G., Lerg, C.A. (2017). Introduction: Journals of Freedom?. In: Scott-Smith, G., Lerg, C. (eds) Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59867-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59867-7_1

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