Clinton’s Campaign & The Anti-Russian Roots of the ‘Cultural Left’
To understand the unique rhetorical style that Clinton has embraced, one must understand what happened at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel back in 1949. Despite the United States being in an anti-communist frenzy, with the House Un-American Activities committee in full swing, and many Communist Party members being sent to federal or state prisons, the Moscow-aligned Communist Party scored a key public relations victory.
On March 25th, 1949 the “Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace” opened in New York City, and gave voice to a loud, solid critique of US foreign policy. Albert Einstein, Will Geer, Arthur Miller, Aaron Copeland, Lillian Hellman, Frank Oppenheimer, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Dubois, and many of the most well respected cultural and intellectual figures of the time took the stage at the conference. The speeches not only denounced the military build-up against the Soviet Union, but also defended Soviet military interventions, and presented the USSR as a friendly, socialist society, not the “Iron Curtain” or “Evil Empire” portrayed in US media. The US Central Intelligence Agency watched with anger as images of the Waldorf Peace Conference were distributed by media outlets across the planet, discrediting the United States and raising the prestige of the Soviet Union.
In response, the following year the CIA launched a project called the “Congress for Cultural Freedom.” Still today, the project is considered to be one of the agency’s greatest achievements of the Cold War era. The CIA brags about the project on its website saying it involved: “a cadre of energetic and well-connected staffers willing to experiment with unorthodox ideas and controversial individuals if that was what it took to challenge the Communists at their own game.”
Related:
Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-50
