To counteract the Soviet influence in Europe, at the end of WWII the United States created a network of pro-American elites. Thus, the CIA financed the Congress for Cultural Freedom in which many European intellectuals participated. Among the most distinguished ones were Raymond Aron and Michel Crozier. Responsible for designing an anti-communist ideology welcomed by the conservative right as well as the socialist and reformist left of Europe during the Cold War, these networks were reactivated by the Bush administration. Today, they are the European sounding board of American conservatives.
When the CIA financed European Intellectuals
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As a CIA official in the early 1950s, Mr. Braden was head of the International Organizations Division, which promoted anti-communism by secretly funding groups including the AFL-CIO and the National Student Association, sending the Boston Symphony Orchestra on a European tour and publishing Encounter magazine. After Ramparts magazine exposed the CIA’s system of funding anti-communist front organizations all over the globe, Mr. Braden defended the program in an article in a 1967 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. He said the secret program was his idea.
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