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The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters Paperback – Illustrated, November 5, 2013

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 125 ratings
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During the Cold War, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy's most cherished possession―but such freedom was put in service of a hidden agenda. In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders reveals the extraordinary efforts of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West were working for or subsidized by the CIA―whether they knew it or not.

Called "the most comprehensive account yet of the [CIA's] activities between 1947 and 1967" by the New York Times, the book presents shocking evidence of the CIA's undercover program of cultural interventions in Western Europe and at home, drawing together declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA's astonishing campaign to deploy the likes of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, and Jackson Pollock as weapons in the Cold War. Translated into ten languages, this classic work―now with a new preface by the author―is "a real contribution to popular understanding of the postwar period" (The Wall Street Journal), and its story of covert cultural efforts to win hearts and minds continues to be relevant today.
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  1. Print length
    448 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The New Press
  4. Publication date
    November 5, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    6.56 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781595589149
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1595589149
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A tale of intrigue and betrayal, with scene after scene as thrilling as any in a John le Carré novel."
―Chronicle of Higher Education

"A major work of investigative history [and] an extremely valuable contribution to the all-important post-World War II record."
―Edward Said, London Review of Books

"Avoids polemic and fits the fragments of elusive fact into a coherent and persuasive narrative."
―Lewis Lapham, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Makes clear the sinuous interlocking nature of American governmental, corporate and cultural life . . . consistently fascinating."
―Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Frances Stonor Saunders is the author of The Devil's Broker and The Woman Who Shot Mussolini. She has worked as the arts editor of the New Statesman; writes and presents for BBC radio; and has written for Areté, The Guardian, Lapham's Quarterly, and the Los Angeles Times. She lives in London.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1595589147
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The New Press; Second edition (November 5, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781595589149
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1595589149
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.41 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.56 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 125 ratings

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Frances Stonor Saunders

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
125 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dmitry Jr
5.0 out of 5 stars The secret war waged in the cultural and intellectual front
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2021
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In this eye-opening and incredibly informative book, Frances S. Saunders reveals the deep influence of the US cultural front domestically and internationally, and how the CIA had a hand in every operation it took and the many figures involved in it. All of this was largely circulated under the Congress for Cultural Freedom. In the name of stopping the spread of communism and promoting American values across the globe, this almost honest effort was funded and molded by the CIA to become a US-based front in Cold War politics, undermining not just the Soviet Union, but anything critical of the US.
How did this all come to be? Saunders does reveal that the Congress’s origins came from a response to Soviet cultural exhibitions in 1947 Berlin, exhibitions that upstaged the British and American responses. These exhibitions put an impression on Michael Josselson, who immediately seized the moment (along with John Hunt, Nicholas Nabokov, and Melvin Lasky) and established the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The organization’s goals were to pull Europe’s cultural sphere away from the Soviet Union and more towards the American sphere. And from the beginning, the CIA was involved with the operation, funneling money towards the Congress through both fake and real donation organizations (like the Fairfield and the Ford Foundations). The money proved to be useful for the Congress, such as bribing anti-Soviet intellectuals into doing the CIA’s bidding. These intellectuals had their works published in anti-Soviet books like The God that Failed or magazines like Partisan Review, Encounter, and many others. The CIA funded modernist artists like Jackson Pollock, funded films and distributed American books that intended to elevate American culture in the eyes of Europe. One notable operation that the Congress did was distribute George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, notably making an animated film version of the former. All of this was done in secrecy in the eyes of the public, just to give the impression that the Congress was a genuine organization and not a CIA front.
Saunders uses declassified documents, memoirs, and whatever interviews from former Congress people accessible to help craft this story. The Congress for Cultural Freedom used to be on the CIA’s website for all the world to see: until recently, they were proud to display their achievements of influencing the cultural and intellectual spheres of the world. The people who were part of it did not regret it: After the Berlin Wall fell, Lasky was incredibly ecstatic that his magazine Encounter had made a KGB agent become a dissident. The Cultural Cold War was definitely an eye-opener for me, just knowing how deep the CIA was in influencing US culture and pedaling it across the globe, and the CIA might still have that influence to this day.
8 people found this helpful
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M. A. Krul
5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting history of CIA propagandism in the West
Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2007
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Most people are probably aware that the CIA sponsored a lot of activities, legal and extralegal, in the war against the Communist bloc known as the Cold War. But it is perhaps less well-known to what extent the CIA was involved in sponsoring, bribing and suborning writers, musicians, actors and intellectuals to agitate against the Soviet Union and its allies, as well as communism and Marxism in general. In particular the CIA-run organization "Congress for Cultural Freedom" and its flagship intellectual journal 'Encounter' had a great influence in the West in terms of effective propagandizing for the US point of view.

Frances Stonor Saunders, an independent film producer and writer for the New Statesman, has now produced an authoritative modern history of the CIA and the Congress, as well as related organizations, focusing both on the global political dimen. She focuses on the global politics, but also on the individuals involved on all sides, the many prominent writers and intellectuals in the organizations, and what it looked like from the CIA's perspective, for which she makes use of newly declassified documents. She shows convincingly that the "non-Communist Left" was by and large bribed or cajoled by the CIA, in so far as they didn't enthousiastically volunteer, into joining their propaganda front. She also shows that later denials by people such as Stephen Spender and Melvin Lasky of their knowledge of CIA involvement is extremely unrealistic and most likely just another lie.

That is not to say that this work is a polemic; far from it, Saunders writes very matter-of-factly and evenhandedly, and has little interest in discussing the merits of various political positions, though she does not fail to comment on the context of the Cold War at times, when she contrasts high-minded phrasery with the rather brutal and cynical realities of Vietnam, CIA activity in Latin America, the Soviet purges, the repression of Hungary, etc. The book is very extensive, making use of various sorts of sources, including interviews with important participants, in which they reflect remarkably often in a rather cynical way on their past activities. It's quite astounding how many famous writers, composers, intellectuals etc., from Nabokov's cousin to Stravinsky and from Russell to Stuart Hampshire, were involved in organized campaigns to attack and discredit their socialist colleagues. For that alone, this book is worth reading, that these crimes are not forgotten.
34 people found this helpful
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Priscilla Ciccariello
4.0 out of 5 stars The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2013
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One of the first books on this subject published in the 1970s, printed first in England under a different title, documenting Congressional initiated and funded C.I.A. activities in support of the arts and artists though government programs during the (1950s) "cold war." This, as a means of countering U.S.S.R. government sponsored art and literature propaganda. Interesting and revealing regarding possible influence that this Congressional support meant in the development of various styles of art in the U.S. Well documented and interesting to see the influence of these programs in the Cold War of the two great powers for the 10 - 20 years following the WW II.Well documented and footnoted, with comprehensive Bibliography. Reviews on Amazon demonstrate interesting opinions
2 people found this helpful
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Dale Kaplan
5.0 out of 5 stars Important history, well written, plenty of reference material ...
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2017
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Important history, well written, plenty of reference material. A page-turner for anyone already intetested in the area, and a compelling reason for delving even further into the history and for keeping abreast of current events that continue to demonstrate the relationship of individual cultural expression with institutional power. A significant contribution to uncovering the lie of "political neutrality" in the production, dissemination, and consumption of culture.
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Luc REYNAERT
5.0 out of 5 stars The War of the Words
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2021
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In this book, F.S. Saunders reveals in hard-hitting prose the financing by the US government of a secret cultural propaganda programme under the cover of ‘philantropic’ foundations. The fact in itself isn’t that astonishing. Only the vast financial means involved and the extension of the network (with offices in thirty-five countries) are mind-boggling.

Aim
This programme had to inoculate the western world against the contagion of communism and to promote the US way of political, socio-economic and artistic life: a Pax Americana.
This battle for man’s minds had to be won through the creation of a western non-communist Left, which could nudge the intelligentsia away from its fascination with Marxism and Communism.

Methods and Means
The main method was psychological warfare: ‘move the subject in the direction you desire for reasons which he believes to be his own.’
Artists and institutions, which owned magazines and organized expositions and performances, were lavishly financed, thereby roping them ‘in an umbilical cord of gold’. All those involved were expected to perform ‘really’ in the propaganda effort.
A few names: A. Schlesinger (the main ideologist), R. Aron, A. Koestler, S. Spender, M. Sperber, D. de Rougemont, I. Silone, I. Kristol.
A major propaganda ‘instrument’ was God. As the author states: ‘Political virtue was to be submitted to a long standing Christian tradition of obedience to the law of God. By invoking the ultimate moral authorities, the US acquired an unanswerable sanction for her manifest destiny.’
For literature, its main English vehicle was the magazine ‘Encounter’, edited by a rather naïve Stephen Spender. In Germany, it was ‘Der Monat’.
Another literary chapter was the battle for the control of PEN.
In painting, Abstract Expressionism was heavily promoted (because it had nothing to say in the face of Guernica? LR).

Realities at home and abroad
At home, the US was everything except a heaven of liberalism. McCarthyism provoked a cultural cleansing with a new outburst of book burning (even the works of Thomas Mann!).
Abroad, its secret services manipulated the outcome of democratic elections, plotted assassinations, supported dictatorships and overthrew democratically elected governments. As F.S. Saunders states and quotes, ‘the secret services elevated the art of lying to a new height’, ‘not (for) civic virtue, but (for) empire.’
They created a perfect virtual world.

This book is a must read for all those who want to know the world we ‘actually’ live in.
One caveat: the author doesn’t discuss the neutralization of western intellectuals, by planting ‘secretaries’ in their offices.
2 people found this helpful
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Julchana
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read, you will never think of art in the same way
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2021
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Eye opening book on how methodical and cunning CIA's tactics were and are and how they used art (soft power) to change and shape the narrative across the world to destabilise the USSR, which lead to its demise.
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reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 21, 2013
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Interesting to know how many of the best known personalities in 'Culture' were promoted indirectly by the CIA.
Much of this was very new to me.
3 people found this helpful
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Vera E Butina-McCarthy
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 2, 2015
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I love it.
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Jomarleen
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 14, 2014
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Great book, worth reading
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