I can think of no group of people who have done more to hold our world together in these last years than you and your associates in the Congress [for Cultural Freedom]. In this country [the United States] in particular, few will ever understand the dimensions and significance of your accomplishment.
—George F. Kennan to Nicolas Nabokov, 1959

Of the many important chapters in the history of the Cold War that are nowadays either forgotten, misremembered, or summarily consigned to a demonology that places them beyond the reach of rational inquiry, none has been entombed under a heavier burden of obloquy and distortion than the story of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which emerged in 1950 as the West’s most steadfast and effective focus of intellectual resistance to Stalin and Stalinism and went on to play a significant role in exposing the true nature of Communism and the fraudulent culture that had been created in its name. The reason for the dismal fate suffered by this once admired organization—the ostensible reason, anyway—is anything but obscure. For much of its seventeen-year existence, the Congress for Cultural Freedom—and thus its principal publications and programs—was covertly financed by the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington. Exactly how many of the Congress’s leaders were actually deceived about the CIA’s subvention of their organization’s activities is something we shall probably never know. (Michael Josselson, the executive director and presiding spirit of the Congress, was the only one to acknowledge responsibility in the matter.)