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The Shadow Dossier — The Culture War the CIA Funded in Secret · The Shadow Dossier

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  the shadow dossier act i a congress with no delegates
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  in june 1950 in a divided berlin a group of writers
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  artists and intellectuals gathered to found an
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  organization called the congress for cultural
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  freedom its stated purpose was to defend intellectual
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  and artistic freedom against totalitarianism
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  at a moment when Soviet -aligned cultural organizations
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  were actively courting Western writers and artists
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  with the promise of a more just society. What
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  almost none of the attendees knew was that the
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  Congress had been conceived and was being secretly
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  funded by the Central Intelligence Agency through
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  a network of front foundations designed to make
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  the money's true origin untraceable. Over the
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  following 17 years, the Congress for Cultural
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  Freedom grew into a sprawling operation with
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  offices in more than 30 countries. It funded
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  prestigious magazines, most notably Encounter
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  in Britain. which published serious literary
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  and political writing and attracted contributors
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  who had no idea of the funding behind it it sponsored
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  international conferences art exhibitions orchestral
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  tours and academic fellowships the strategic
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  logic as cia officers later explained it was
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  straightforward Many European intellectuals of
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  the post -war era were suspicious of anything
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  that smelled of American propaganda, but were
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  often sympathetic to a genuinely independent,
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  anti -totalitarian left. The agency's operatives
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  believed that funding a version of that independent
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  left, one that would criticize Stalinism as readily
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  as it criticized capitalism. was a far more effective
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  form of influence than any overt propaganda campaign
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  could be. Money moved through a chain of ostensibly
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  private philanthropic foundations, several of
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  which existed for no purpose other than to pass
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  CIA funds along, without the final recipients
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  ever seeing the agency's name attached. The secret
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  held for most of two decades. It came apart in
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  1966 and 1967 when a series of investigative
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  articles, most consequentially in the radical
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  magazine ramparts, followed by extensive reporting
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  in the New York Times, traced the funding trail
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  back to the CIA. The Revelations named the Congress
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  for cultural freedom along with the National
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  Student Association and other organizations that
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  had also received covert agency funding. The
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  fallout was significant. Many of the writers
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  and editors who had worked with Congress -funded
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  publications felt genuinely betrayed, having
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  believed they were participating in an independent
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  intellectual project. Some had suspected government
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  involvement and looked the other way. Others
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  had no idea at all. The Congress itself was quickly
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  reorganized under open funding and a new name,
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  the International Association for Cultural Freedom,
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  but its credibility never fully recovered. The
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  Congress for Cultural Freedom left behind an
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  uncomfortable question that intelligence historians
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  still argue over. Does covert funding taint good
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  work? Even when the work itself, the essays,
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  the novels, the debates about freedom and totalitarianism,
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  was genuine and often excellent on its own terms?
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  Defenders of the program argued that in a Cold
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  War fought partly in the realm of ideas. This
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  was simply asymmetric warfare against the Soviet
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  cultural apparatus that was, after all, also
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  secretly state -funded. Critics argued that no
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  amount of good writing could justify deceiving
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  the writers themselves about who was paying for
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  the platform. What's certain is the scale of
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  it. For close to two decades, some of the most
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  respected intellectual magazines and cultural
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  institutions in the Western world were, without
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  their editors' full knowledge, instruments of
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  a secret American intelligence program. This
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  concludes declassified file number 054 of the
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  Shadow Dossier. The culture war the CIA funded
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  in secret. What dangerous secrets await in our
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  next file? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
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  RSS .com, and YouTube so you never miss an official
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  declassification. This is the Shadow Dossier.
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  Thank you for listening.