CULTURE WAR II

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200970042-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: April 18, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200970042-7
THE NATI0i1
18 April 1981
n the April 6 edition of The New- York Times ap-
pe'ared a full-page -ad with the headline, ',,We--a
group of intellectuals and religious leaders-applaud
--= American policy is El Salvador,'The sponsor of the
ad was given as The Committee for the Free World, Midge
Decter, executive director: But' to read the names. of the
signers of the ad is to experience a sense of dejd vu.
The Committee for the Free World is a new international
organization formed to combat Soviet totalitarianism and to
defend "the- values, the achievements- and the institutions
of Western civilization." A galaxy of 400 intellectuals, ar-
tists and scholars from a dozen countries have joined it, in-
cluding authors Saul. Bellow,, Herman Wouk; Paddy Cha-
yefsky and Jerzy Kosinski; playwright Eugene lonesco; col-
umnist Max Lerner, TV commentator Eric Sevareid; colum-.
nist and editor R. Emmet Tyrrell Jr., and scholars Bruno
Bettelheim, Gershesm Scholem and Oscar Handlin_.,Nlidge
Decter, the writer and wife of Commentary editor Norman
Podhoretz, recently resigned as an editor at Basic Books to
become executive director of the committee.
Aside from some glittering new names, however, the com-
mittee- bears a striking- resemblance to the Congress for
Cultural Freedom, which thrived during the cold war-from
1950 to 1966, until it was exposed as a Central Intelligence
Agency front by The New York Tunes and other publica-
tions. The C.I.A. secretly supported the congress as a means
of enlisting intellectuals and opinion makers in a war of
ideas. against Communism.:-.--_
--,:An obvious link between the_cong rss and The Committee
for the Free World is the fact .that the same people are in
volved.: For- example, Sidney Hook;:, the philosopher. and
author, and Raymond Aron, the French, sociologist and
political commentator, were delegates- to the 1950 Berlin
conference that launched the Congress for. Cultural Free-
dom. Hook later- served as' chairman of its American
branch, and Aron- was on the international executive corn.
mittee. Hook is a founding member of The Committee for
the Free World,: and Aron is its international chairman.
Leopold Labedz, who, along with Midge Decter, had the
original idea for The Committee for the Free World, was as
editor of Soviet Survey, which was funded by the congress.
Labedz serves as European chairman and head of the Lon-
don office of the committee. Melvin Lasky, the first general
secretary and organizer of the Congress for Cultural Free-
dom and later an editor of Encounter, also subsidized by the
congress,. is on the committee's board of directors. Irving
Kristol, who resigned as executive director of theAmerican
Committee for Cultural Freedom in 1953 to become an
editor of Encounter, is another board member.
Not all who were invited to join the committee accepted,
however.. For example, Prof. Ralf Dahrendorf, director of
the London School of Economics and a prominent sociolo-
gist, declined t sign up. our he had many good riends
on;the. committee, . Dahrendorf - explained, he thought it
strange that people who represented'the current political
trend to the right and had access. to positions of power
seemed `.'so defensive." _
Although the Free World committee claims in a press re-
lease.that `,`no money will be sought or accepted from any
government or government agency," several foundations
.that provided nearly half.its seed money have close ties'to
the C.I.A. The Smith Richardson Foundation of -North
Carolina and the-Scaife Family Charitable Trusts of Pitts-
burgh. each put up at. least $25,000 of the approximately
$125,000 initially raised by the committee. The -Smith'
Richardson Foundation, which has C.I.A. officials.aniong
its consultants reviewing grants, provides management
training. to C.I.A_ and Defense Department employees
through an affiliate. [See Friedman, "Public: TV's C.I.A.
Show," The Nation, July 19 26,1980.1 Rickard M. Scaife, a
trustee of the Scaife Family Charitable Trusts, was listed as
the owner of Forum World Features, a C.I.A.-funded news
service, according to a 1975 Washington Post article...; -
Convinced that "the struggle for freedom may in the end
be won or lost not on battlefields but in books, newspapers,
broadcasts and classrooms," according to a press release,
the Free World committee plans "to conduct a vigorous
--battle in the cultural arena." It will sponsor conferences,
publications, a-speakers' bureau and a monthly bulletin to
"monitor" press reports, much as the-Congress for Cultural
Freedom sponsored conferences and a range of publications
to fight the cold war. (In addition to Soviet Survey and En
counter, the congress subsidized more than ten magazines
-around the world and scores'of books, including; in 1954,
McCarthy and the Communists by James Rorty and Moshe
Decter, former husband of Midge Decter.) -
Through organizations like the congress, the Government
subsidized editors and scholars-who were selected for their
'correct cold-war positions rather than for their talent or
:merit, enabling it to rig the free marketplace of ideas. In ef-
`fect, as-Jason Epstein noted in a -1967 New York Review of .
-Books article, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, "osten-
sibly devoted to cultural freedom," as its-name implied, was
"based upon lies." The formation of The Committee for
the Free World, in 1981, revives important issues about the
relationship between intellectuals and government. Its, ad-
vent is-a sign that a new cultural cold war is about to erupt,
along.with a renewed arms race. JOHNS. FRIEDMAN
John. S. Friedman is a Washington-based journalist .who'
specializes in the-politics of the arts..
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000200970042-7