'Unwitting Assets?': British Intellectuals and the Congress for Cultural Freedom

The purpose of this article is to document the activities, inBritain during the 1950s, of the Congress for Cultural Freedom(CCF), a body of anti-communist intellectuals based in Pariswhich received covert subsidies from the Central IntelligenceAgency. Although initially unpopular in Britain, the CCF eventuallywon significant support among the country's literary, political,and academic intellectuals, including most notably the youngLabour politicians known as the Gaitskellites. While suggestingthat the influence of the CCF, and therefore of the CIA, oncold war Britain was greater than has previously been supposed,the article also shows how the behaviour of British intellectualsoften confounded and frustrated the intentions of their secretiveAmerican patrons. ^* I am grateful to Brandon High, David Martin, Jasper Ridley,and Frances Stonor Saunders for their comments on earlier draftsof this article, the research for which was funded in part byMiddlesex University and the Fulbright Commission.