Autonomy, Predicament and Imbroglio: The CCF in the Third World

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) published and supported more than forty prestigious magazines on all continents. Even more than artists, writers became the CIA’s weapon of choice in promoting the idea of “anti-totalitarianism” among opinion leaders around the world. Paz Guevara and Rasha Salti will discuss the political and cultural role played by magazines in the context of Cold War politics. Navigating through articles and archival material the conversation will shed light on the rise and fall of Beirut-based Hiwar magazine, which was shut down by its editor Tawfiq Sayigh in the aftermath of a 1966 New York Times article that revealed the CCF to be a front organization for the CIA, as well as Mundo Nuevo magazine and the Latin American debates between instrumentalization and intellectual autonomy, and the anti-colonial positions granted across several CCF magazines.

To the biography of Rasha Salti

To the biography of Paz Guevara