American Committee for Cultural Freedom
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American arm of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
In 1952, after the committee became embroiled in the controversy over McCarthyism, Frank Wisnerwrote:
- I can understand how an American committee for cultural freedom, standing alone, and being in fact a group of American private citizens interested in cultural freedom, would feel that it would have to take a position on McCarthyism. However that is not the nature of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom which, accoding to my recollection, was inspired if not put together by this Agency for the purpose of providing cover and backstopping for the European effort. If sch is the case, we are stuck with the Committee in that we have an inescapable responsibility for its conduct, its actions and its public statements.[1]
Melvin Lasky described the American Committee as 'part of the endemic covert nature of the thing.'
- The Agency couldn't participate in domestic affairs, and yet you had to have an American Committee. How could you not? It would've been an inexplicable anomaly. You say you're international, so where are the Americans? It would've been like going into a prize fight with only one glove. It was the weakest side of this covert thing, but you had to have it. How not?[2]
