The Politics of Apolitical Culture

Beyond freedom, beyond control, beyond the Cold War: approaches to American culture and the state-private network

“…but he devotes little space to the evolving thought of European intellectuals even as he claims their agreement with [the] timeless principles of intellectual freedom. 43 Such an assertion has to contend with Christopher Laschs challenge, published 35 years ago, that freedom was far from a simple matter for the CC.s leading voices: The defense of freedom merged imperceptibly with the dogmatic attack on historical materialism which, in another context, had done so much to impede historical and sociological scholarship in the period of the Cold War. 44 …”

“…[Congress for Cultural .reedom], therefore, should not be the outlook of the CIA but the views of the post-war intelligentsia, and how the Congress both emerged as a consequence of those views and simultaneously represented their political co-optation within the conditions of the Cold War. 14 Actually, Saunders story holds up well against this critique, at least in regard to cultural production. At every free gathering of intellectuals seeking freedom, the states operatives were in the shadows.…”

The editor and the CIA: Herbert Tingsten and the Congress for Cultural Freedom: a symbiotic relationship

“…It was in that sense, as Giles Scott-Smith argues, a conscious effort to create a new overarching ideology (in the guise of a non-ideological objective statement) for Western intellectuals. 96 Change and continuity: the latter half of the 1950s and early 1960s…”

Foreign policy fusion: Liberal interventionists, conservative nationalists and neoconservatives — the new alliance dominating the US foreign policy establishment

“…In proposing a major new offensive against anti-Americanism and in favour of US foreign policy, Kennedy argued for building new networks of scholars, journalists, politicians, businessmen and students 'dedicated to the cause of keeping the idea of the West and its ever expanding community of liberal democracies alive.' Indeed, Kennedy suggests the resurrection and adaptation of the discredited CIA-front organization, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a Cold War initiative part-funded by the Ford Foundation in the 1950s and 1960s (Parmar, 2006b;Kennedy and Gedmin, 2003;Scott-Smith, 2002;Wilford, 2003).…”