Finks : how the CIA tricked the world's best writers

Resource Information

The work Finks : how the CIA tricked the world's best writers represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in DC Public Library System. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Finks : how the CIA tricked the world's best writers

Title remainder

how the CIA tricked the world's best writers

Statement of responsibility

Joel Whitney

Title variation

How the CIA tricked the world's best writers

Creator

• Whitney, Joel, (Journalist)

Author

• Whitney, Joel, (Journalist)

Subject

• Propaganda -- United States -- History -- 20th century
• United States -- Cultural policy
• Freedom and art -- Political aspects -- United States
• United States, Central Intelligence Agency -- Influence
• United States, Central Intelligence Agency -- History -- 20th century
• Politics and culture -- United States

Language

• eng
• eng

Summary

"When news broke that the CIA had colluded with literary magazines to produce cultural propaganda throughout the Cold War, a debate began that has never been resolved. The story continues to unfold, with the reputations of some of America's best-loved literary figures--including Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, and Richard Wright--tarnished as their work for the intelligence agency has come to light. Finks is a tale of two CIAs, and how they blurred the line between propaganda and literature. One CIA created literary magazines that promoted American and European writers and cultural freedom, while the other toppled governments, using assassination and censorship as political tools. Defenders of the 'cultural' CIA argue that it should have been lauded for boosting interest in the arts and freedom of thought, but the two CIAs had the same undercover goals, and shared many of the same methods: deception, subterfuge and intimidation. Finks demonstrates how the good-versus-bad CIA is a false divide, and that the cultural Cold Warriors again and again used anti-Communism as a lever to spy relentlessly on leftists, and indeed writers of all political inclinations, and thereby pushed U.S. democracy a little closer to the Soviet model of the surveillance state."--Publisher description

Cataloging source

BTCTA

Dewey number

327.1273

Illustrations

• illustrations
• plates

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography