Encounter
Giles Scott-Smith [1]argues that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) arose at a time when the traditional position of the autonomous critical intellectual was under threat from the demands of political conformism in the east and west, and was in a sense a response to these conditions, but he also argues this from Gramsci's notion of the role of the 'intellectual' within the construction and maintenance of hegemony:
- "This recognises cultural-intellectual activity as essentially connected to, and crucially involved with, the material conditions of society." [2]
'Encounter' was funded through the CCF during the cold war as part of the US (and British government's) secret programme of cultural propaganda in Western Europe in the 50s and beyond. Managed by the recently formed CIA, the CCF was the centrepiece run by CIA agent Michael Josselson (from 1950-1967).
