The Mighty Wurlitzer

by Wilford, Hugh

• ISBN13: 9780674032569
• ISBN10: 067403256X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

In 1967 the magazine Ramparts ran an exposeacute; revealing that the Central Intelligence Agency had been secretly funding and managing a wide range of citizen front groups intended to counter communist influence around the world. In addition to embarrassing prominent individuals caught up, wittingly or unwittingly, in the secret superpower struggle for hearts and minds, the revelations of 1967 were one of the worst operational disasters in the history of American intelligence and presaged a series of public scandals from which the CIA's reputation has arguably never recovered.CIA official Frank Wisner called the operation his "mighty Wurlitzer," on which he could play any propaganda tune. In this illuminating book, Hugh Wilford provides the first comprehensive account of the clandestine relationship between the CIA and its front organizations. Using an unprecedented wealth of sources, he traces the rise and fall of America's Cold War front network from its origins in the 1940s to its Third World expansion during the 1950s and ultimate collapse in the 1960s.Covering the intelligence officers who masterminded the CIA's fronts as well as the involved citizen groups--eacute;migreacute;s, labor, intellectuals, artists, students, women, Catholics, African Americans, and journalists--Wilford provides a surprising analysis of Cold War society that contains valuable lessons for our own age of global conflict.

Author Biography

Hugh Wilford is Associate Professor of History, California State University, Long Beach.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Innocents' Clubs: The Origins of the CIA Front	p. 11
Secret Army: Émigrés	p. 29
AFL-CIA: Labor	p. 51
A Deep Sickness in New York: Intellectuals	p. 70
The Cultural Cold War: Writers, Artists, Musicians, Filmmakers	p. 99
The CIA on Campus: Students	p. 123
The Truth Shall Make You Free: Women	p. 149
Saving the World: Catholics	p. 167
Into Africa: African Americans	p. 197
Things Fall Apart: Journalists	p. 225
Conclusion	p. 249
Notes	p. 257
Acknowledgments	p. 319
Index	p. 321
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