Encounter, the CIA, the IRD and the relationship of British intellectuals with the Establishment
Audio Version (to download right-click and 'Save link as...')
- Speaker(s):
- Matthew Spender (son of Stephen Spender and a board member of the Stephen Spender Trust); Frances Stonor Saunders (author of Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War); James Smith (New College; he is writing a book on British intellectuals and the Establishment); Maren Roth (writing a biography of Melvin Lasky and is supervisor of the Lasky papers in Munich); Jason Harding (Durham University, and TS Eliot Project, Institute of English Studies)
- Event date:
- Friday 20 January 2012
School of Advanced Study, University of London
- Description
-
Stephen Spender Research Seminar - Encounter, the CIA, the IRD and the relationship of British intellectuals with the Establishment
In 1967 it was revealed that the magazine Encounter had been secretly financed by the CIA since its foundation. Stephen Spender, its British co-editor, resigned. Its American editor Melvin Lasky stayed on. Whereas the CIA aspect has received much publicity and several academic studies, the involvement of the British co-sponsors, the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, has largely been ignored. This symposium will discuss the extent to which editorial decisions were compromised by the magazine's secret sponsors, what were the differences in outlook and policy between the CIA and the IRD, and what damage was caused by the revelation of its secret agenda. Though the symposium will concentrate on Encounter, it will also discuss the larger question of Anglo-American cultural relationships.
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