Congress for Cultural Freedom
Founded | 26 June 1950 |
---|---|
Dissolved | 1979 (as International Association for Cultural Freedom) |
Location |
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Endowment | CIA to 1966; Ford Foundation to 1979 |
The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist cultural organization founded on June 26, 1950 in West Berlin, and was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the CIA was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the group.[1][2] The congress aimed to enlist intellectuals and opinion makers in a war of ideas against communism.
Historian Frances Stonor Saunders writes (1999): "Whether they liked it or not, whether they knew it or not, there were few writers, poets, artists, historians, scientists, or critics in postwar Europe whose names were not in some way linked to this covert enterprise."[3] Peter Coleman argues that the CCF was a participant in a struggle for the mind "of Postwar Europe" and the world at large.[4]
Origins, 1948–1950
The CCF was founded on 26 June 1950 in
The founding conference of the Congress for Cultural Freedom was attended by leading intellectuals from the U.S. and Western Europe. Among those who came to Berlin in June 1950 were writers, philosophers, critics and historians:
Executive Committee and Secretariat
An Executive Committee was elected in 1950 at the founding conference in Berlin, with seven members and six alternate members:
The management of the CCF was entrusted to its secretariat, headed by Michael Josselson.[3] By the time Josselson joined the Congress of Cultural Freedom in 1950 he was "undoubtedly a CIA officer".[14] A polyglot able to converse fluently in four languages (English, Russian, German and French), Josselson was heavily involved in the CCF's growing range of activities – its periodicals, worldwide conferences and international seminars – until his resignation in 1967, following the exposure of funding by the CIA.[15]
Activities, 1950–1966
At its height, the CCF had offices in 35 countries, employed dozens of personnel, and published over twenty prestigious magazines. It held art exhibitions, owned a news and features service, organized high-profile international conferences, and rewarded musicians and artists with prizes and public performances.[1][3]
Between 1950 and 1966 the Congress sponsored numerous conferences. A selective list describes 16 conferences in the 1950s held principally in Western Europe, but also in
In the early 1960s, the CCF mounted a campaign against the
CIA involvement revealed, 1966
In April 1966,
In 1967, the US magazines
That same year in May,
Legacy
In 1967, the organization was renamed the International Association for Cultural Freedom (IACF) and continued to exist with funding from the Ford Foundation. It inherited "the remaining magazines and national committees, the practice of international seminars, the regional programs, and the ideal of a worldwide community of intellectuals." There was also, until 1970, "some continuity of personnel".[30]
Under Shepard Stone and Pierre Emmanuel the dominant policy of the new Association shifted from positions held by its predecessor. No "public anti-Soviet protests" were issued, "not even in support of the harassed Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov". The culmination of this approach was a vast seminar at Princeton on "The United States: Its Problems, Impact, and Image in the World" (December 1968) where unsuccessful attempts were made to engage with the New Left. From 1968 onwards national committees and magazines (see CCF/IACF Publications below) shut down one after another. In 1977 the Paris office closed and two years later the Association voted to dissolve itself.[31]
Certain of the publications that began as CCF-supported vehicles secured a readership and ongoing relevance that, with other sources of funding, enabled them to long outlast the parent organisation. Encounter continued publishing until 1991, as did Survey, while the Australian
The European Intellectual Mutual Aid Fund (Fondation pour une Entraide Intellectuelle Européenne) set up to support intellectuals in Central Europe, began life as an affiliate of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. In 1991 it merged with the Open Society Foundations, set up and supported by financier and philanthropist George Soros.[32] The records of the International Association for Cultural Freedom and its predecessor the Congress for Cultural Freedom are today stored at the Library of the University of Chicago in its Special Collections Research Center.
Publications
The Congress founded, sponsored or encouraged a number of publications to disseminate its ideas.[33] Some of them are the following:
Name | Region | Date | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Aportes | Latin America | closed 1972 | Produced by the Latin American Institute for International Relations (ILARI), established in 1966, which was closed by IACF in 1972.[31] |
Black Orpheus | Nigeria | 1957–1975 | Founded by German expatriate editor and scholar Ulli Beier, Black Orpheus has been described as a powerful catalyst for artistic awakening throughout West Africa.[34] |
Cadernos Brasileiros | Brazil | 1959–1971 | A quarterly (until 1963), later bi-monthly, literary magazine.[35] ICAF subsidy ceased in 1971.[31] |
Censorship | United Kingdom | 1964–1967 | Edited by Murray Mindlin the six issues dealt with censorship around the world. (In 1972 Index on Censorship, a publication covering the same themes, was founded by Stephen Spender.)[36] |
China Report | India | 1964–1970s | Established at the New Delhi bureau of the Congress, China Report became a bimonthly journalistic enterprise.[37] After its IACF subsidy ended in 1971 it found other sources of funding.[31] |
The China Quarterly | United Kingdom | 1960 to present | Became a leading journal on Communist China (and also Taiwan) by reason of its lack of rivals in the field and the scholarly standard of its articles.[38] When its IACF subsidy ceased in 1968 it found other sources of funding.[31] |
Cuadernos del Congreso por la Libertad de la Cultura | Paris, intended for distribution in Latin America | 1953–1965 | Edited by Julián Gorkin, assisted by Ignacio Iglesias and Luis Mercier Verga – a cultural quarterly magazine that reached 100 issues.[39] |
Encounter | United Kingdom | 1953–1991 | A literary-political magazine founded by Stephen Spender and Irving Kristol. By 1963 its circulation had risen to 34,000[40] and that year the magazine secured independent funding.[41] Edited from 1958 onwards by Melvin J. Lasky. |
Examen | Mexico | 1958–1962 | A cultural magazine.[42] |
Forvm | Austria | 1954–1995 | A political and cultural magazine in founded by Friederich Torberg and others. In 1965 it was taken over by Gunter Nenning and became Neues Forum, a publication devoted to Christian-Communist dialogue.[43] |
Hiwar
|
Lebanon | 1962–1967 | A bi-monthly literary and cultural magazine published in Beirut, and focusing on the Arab world.[44] |
Informes de China | Argentina | 1960s | Set up to provide Latin America with information about China.[45] |
Jiyu (Freedom) | Japan | 1960 to present | One of the most heavily subsidized of all the CFF magazines.[3] Edited by Hoki Ishihara.[46] The chief editor Isihara found other sources of funding when subsidies from Paris and the national committee ceased to exist.[47] |
Kulturkontakt | Sweden | 1954–1960 | Bimonthly political and cultural magazine, published by Svenska kommittén för kulturens frihet (Swedish Committee for Cultural Freedom).[48] Publishers were Ture Nerman (1954–57) and Ingemar Hedenius (1957–60). Edited by Birgitta Stenberg, Kurt Salomonson and Bengt Alexanderson.[49] |
Minerva | United Kingdom | 1962 to present | A quarterly started by sociologist Edward Shils to address issues relating the "worldwide intellectual community", and particularly the growth in universities.[50] |
Der Monat | Germany | 1948–1987 | A German-language journal airlifted into Berlin during the 1948 Soviet blockade and edited by Melvin J. Lasky until 1978, when it was purchased by Die Zeit. ICAF subsidy ceased in 1968.[31] It continued as a quarterly until 1987. |
Mundo Nuevo | Latin America | 1966–1971 | Successor to Cuadernos (see above). It published established and political writers, holding a variety of views such as Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges,[17] ceasing to exit when IACF funding ended in 1971.[31] |
Perspektiv | Denmark | 1953–69[51] | Described itself as "a magazine for politics, science and culture". Published by Hans Reitzel, edited by Henning Fonsmark[52] and H.C. Branner. Entered a partnership with Selskabet for Frihet og Kultur (Association for Freedom and Culture), the CCF's Danish counterpart, in 1956. Directly funded by the CCF from at least 1960, when the organization established an office in Copenhagen.[53] |
Preuves | France | 1951–1975 | A cultural, intellectual and literary monthly magazine. CCF's first magazine. Preuves means "proof" or "evidence" in French. Edited by François Bondy, a Swiss writer.[3] |
Quadrant | Australia | 1956 to present | A literary journal published by the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, edited by Catholic poet James McAuley, had an "anticommunist thrust".[3][54][55] ICAF subsidy of the Association and of Quadrant ceased in 1972.[31] |
Quest | India | 1955–1958 | English only.[3] In 1971 IACF stopped supporting New Delhi and Calcutta offices.[31] Originally edited by Nissim Ezekiel. [56] |
Sasanggye | South Korea | 1953–1970 | Founded by Chang Chun-ha.[57][34] |
Science and Freedom | 1954–1961 | Edited by Michael Polanyi. Biannual bulletin with "a tiny readership"[3] of 3,000. In 1961 the Congress Executive replaced it with Minerva (see above). | |
Social Science Review | Thailand[58] | ICAF subsidy ceased in 1971; the Review found other sources of funding.[31] | |
Solidarity | Philippines | 1960s & 1970s | A cultural, intellectual and literary monthly magazine.[34] After its IACF subsidy ended in 1971 it found other sources of funding.[31] |
Soviet Survey (became Survey) | 1955–1989 | At first a monthly newsletter edited by Walter Laqueur, the CCF's official representative in Israel. After 1964 became a quarterly journal, edited by Leopold Labedz, focused on Soviet bloc. IACF subsidy ceased in early 1970s; the magazine found other sources of funding.[31] | |
Tempo Presente | Italy | 1956–1967[31] | Edited by Ignazio Silone and Nicola Chiaromonte.[3] |
Transition Magazine[34] | Uganda | 1961–1968[59] | Editor Rajat Neogy.[59] Sales reached 12,000 in early 1960s (a quarter of them in the US) but the arrest, detention and subsequent emigration of editor Neogy in 1968 marked the end of this controversial literary-political magazine.[60] |
Although The Paris Review was co-founded by novelist and CIA operative Peter Matthiessen, who was affiliated with the CCF, the magazine was reportedly a cover for Matthiessen, and not part of the CCF's operations.[61] However, The Paris Review often sold interviews it conducted to CCF-established magazines.[62]
Literature
- Bahr, Ehrhard (2008). Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520257955.
- Berghahn, Volker R.: America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe. Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001. Addresses links between Ford Foundation and CCF.
- Coleman, Peter, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe, New York: Free Press, Collier Macmillan, 1989.
- Michael Hochgeschwender, Freiheit in der Offensive? Der Kongreß für kulturelle Freiheit und die Deutschen, München, 1998 (comprising academic study on the origins, in German).
- Andrew N. Rubin,: Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture, and the Cold War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Addresses the effects of CCF's activities on the visibility and canonization of writers.
- ISBN 1862070296.
- Wellens, Ian (2002). Music on the Frontline: Nicolas Nabokov's Struggle against Communism and Middlebrow Culture. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-0635-X
See also
- CIA and the Cultural Cold War
- Who Paid the Piper?
- New African — initially part-funded by the CCF
- American Committee for Cultural Freedom
- Partisan Review - Received funding from the CCF in the early 1960's
References
- ^ a b Frances Stonor Saunders, "Modern Art was CIA 'weapon'", The Independent, October 22, 1995.
- S2CID 211147094.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, The New Press, 1999.
- ^ Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for Mind of Postwar Europe, The Free Press: New York, 1989.
- ^ Milorad Popov, "The World Council of Peace," in Witold S. Sworakowski (ed.), World Communism: A Handbook, 1918–1965. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1973, p. 488.
- ^ Suslov, M., The Defence of Peace and the Struggle Against the Warmongers, Cominform, 1950.
- ^ a b Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-50
- ^ a b "Frances Stonor Saunders: Wer die Zeche zahlt .... Der CIA und die Kultur im Kalten Krieg". www.perlentaucher.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-04-08.
- ^ K. A. Jelenski, History And Hope: Tradition, Ideology And Change In Modern Society, (1962); reprinted 1970, Praeger Press.
- ISBN 0307472485
- ^ Winock, Michel (1999). Le Siècle des intellectuels (in French). Paris. p. 603.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ See The Liberal Conspiracy, Appendix A, pp. 249–251, for the text of this Manifesto.
- ^ Coleman, pp. 37–40.
- ^ Coleman, p. 41.
- ^ Coleman, p. 232.
- ^ Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy, pp. 253–257.
- ^ a b Coleman, p. 194.
- S2CID 245850463.
- ^ "The C.I.A.: Maker of Policy, or Tool? Agency Raises Questions Around World; Survey Discloses Strict Controls But Reputation of Agency Is Found to Make It a Burden on U.S. Action", The New York Times, April 25, 1966, p. 1.
- ^ "How C.I.A Put an 'Instant Air Force' Into Congo to Carry Out United States Policy", The New York Times, April 26, 1966, p. 30.
- ^ "C.I.A. Operations: A Plot Scuttled, or, How Kennedy in '62 Undid Sugar Sabotage", The New York Times, April 28, 1966, p. 28.
- ^ "C.I.A Operations: Man at Helm, Not the System, Viewed as Key to Control of Agency", The New York Times, April 29, 1966, p. 18.
- ISBN 1135294704.
- ^ "C.I.A Is Spying From 100 Miles Up; Satellites Probe Secrets of the Soviet Union", New York Times, April 27, 1966, p. 28.
- ^ "M.I.T. Cuts Agency Ties", New York Times, April 26, 1966.
- ^ Francis Frascina, "Institutions, Culture, and America's 'Cold War Years': The Making of Greenberg's 'Modernist Painting", Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2003), pp. 71–97.
- ^ Hilton Kramer, "What was the Congress for Cultural Freedom?" The New Criterion, Volume 8, January 1990, p. 7.
- ^ Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy, Free Press, Collier Macmillan, 1989.
- ^ Thomas Braden Archived September 3, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Coleman, pp. 235–240.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Coleman, p. 240.
- S2CID 144219865. – via ScienceDirect(Subscription may be required or content may be available in libraries.)
- S2CID 201380822.
- ^ a b c d Andrew N. Rubin, Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture, and the Cold War
- ISBN 90-6186-803-3.
- ^ Coleman, p. 193.
- ^ Coleman, p. 196.
- ^ Coleman, p. 195.
- ^ Ruiz Galvete, Marta: Cuadernos del Congreso por la Libertad de la Cultura: anticomunismo y guerra fría en América Latina Archived 2006-02-14 at the Wayback Machine en "El Argonauta español ", Numéro 3, 2006 – retrieved October 19, 2009.
- ^ Coleman, p. 185.
- ^ Coleman, p. 221.
- ^ Ocampo, Aurora M. (ed.), Diccionario de escritores mexicanos, Siglo XX, UNAM, Mexico, 2000 (Volume V, p. xviii).
- ^ Coleman, p. 186
- ^ Scott Lucas, Freedom's War: The US Crusade Against the Soviet Union, 1945–56.
- ^ Coleman, p. 196
- ^ Solidarity, Volume 9
- ^ Coleman, p. 188.
- ^ "USA paid for propaganda in Sweden in the 1950s?". Sveriges Radio. 4 March 2013. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
- ^ "Kulturkontakt". Libris. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
- ^ Coleman, p. 197.
- ^ "Historiske tidsskrifter". litteraturlink.dk. Archived from the original on 3 June 2017. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
- ^ Scott-Smith, Giles; Krabbendam, Hans (2003). The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–60. London: Frank Cass Publishers. p. 245.
- ^ "Kold kulturkamp". Dagbladet Information. 25 August 1999. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
- ^ The Michael Josselson Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.
- ^ Pybus, Cassandra, "CIA as Culture Vultures", Jacket, July 12, 2000.
- ^ Bidoun. "The Bequest of Quest". Bidoun. Retrieved 2023-10-05.
- ISBN 978-3-95679-508-4.
- ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the originalon 11 July 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
This is the American way of doing things, to expect to solve all the world's problems in four days", complained Sulak Sivaraksa, editor of Bangkok's Social Science Review. Crumped U.S. Economist Carl Kaysen: "Everyone wants to talk and no one wants to listen." The occasion for their disgruntlement was a four-day meeting last week in Princeton of some 90 international intellectuals assembled for a look at "The U.S.—Its Problems, Impact and Image in the World.
- ^ a b The Salisbury Review, Volumes 9–10.
- ^ Coleman, p. 192.
- ^ Celia McGee (January 13, 2007). "The Burgeoning Rebirth of a Bygone Literary Star". The New York Times. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
- ^ von Aue, Mary (January 4, 2017). "How the CIA Infiltrated the World's Literature". Vice. Retrieved December 24, 2022.