In a message dated 8/21/2000 5:46:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< First we criticise our various governments for not funding poetry
adequately;
 then, when they do . . .

 List members may be interested in historian Cassandra Pybus's article in
 Jacket # 12 titled "The CIA as Culture Vultures". It looks carefully at the
 figures that detail the extrordinary shower of money the Amercian Central
 Intelligence Agency secretly poured into the coffers of one of Australia's
 leading cultural and literary magazine for two decades. Literary editors of
 Quadrant have included poet James McAuley, poet and academic Vivian Smith
 and poet Les Murray, recently recipient of the Queen of England's  Poetry
 Medal.

 Here's the link:

    http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket12/pybus-quadrant-cia.html


 Here's an excerpt from Cassandra Pybus's piece:

 "Quadrant [magazine] was the brainchild of Richard Krygier, the founding
 secretary of the Australian branch of the Congress for Cultural Freedom
 which was established by the CIA in 1950 as a key element in their strategy
 to combat Soviet propaganda. Michael Josselson, chief of the Agency's
 Berlin Office for Covert Action, was the executive director of the Paris
 Secretariat. He was later joined by another agent, John Hunt, and by the
 late fifties there were five CIA operatives working in the Secretariat. In
 its first year the CIA outlay on the Congress for Cultural Freedom was
 $200,000, close to 2 million dollars in 1999 [Australian dollar] terms.
 Later they set up the Fairfield Foundation as a front; one of any number of
 private foundations used to launder CIA money, of which the Ford Foundation
 and Rockefeller Foundation were especially prominent....

 "Josselson was not happy with the make-up of the Australian committee since
 the CIA strategy was to court intellectuals of the non-communist left, not
 fund a bunch of zealous anti-communists. Alarmed by Josselson's
 dissatisfaction, Krygier sought the advice of the editor of  "Encounter",
 Irving Kristol, who suggested that Krygier ask Josselson for money for an
 Australian literary quarterly, along the lines of  "Encounter"....

 "On advice from Bob Santamaria, Australia's most virulent anti-communist
 campaigner, Krygier chose James McAuley as editor. He was not an obvious
 choice for editor of a literary journal, since he was viewed by many in the
 literary world as a mediocre poet and a Catholic fanatic. This chorus of
 concern did not bother Krygier. He had no interest in poetry or religion:
 it was McAuley's passionate anti-communism which really impressed him."

   - John Tranter, Jacket magazine
  >>

John Tranter:

This is so funny!

-Ramez Qureshi


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