# Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers - Hardcover

by **Joel Whitney** (Author)

When news broke that the CIA had colluded with literary magazines to produce cultural propaganda throughout the Cold War, a debate began that has never been resolved. The story continues to unfold, with the reputations of some of America's best-loved literary figures--including Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, and Richard Wright--tarnished as their work for the intelligence agency has come to light.

_Finks_ is a tale of two CIAs, and how they blurred the line between propaganda and literature. One CIA created literary magazines that promoted American and European writers and cultural freedom, while the other toppled governments, using assassination and censorship as political tools. Defenders of the "cultural" CIA argue that it should have been lauded for boosting interest in the arts and freedom of thought, but the two CIAs had the same undercover goals, and shared many of the same methods: deception, subterfuge and intimidation.

_Finks_ demonstrates how the good-versus-bad CIA is a false divide, and that the cultural Cold Warriors again and again used anti-Communism as a lever to spy relentlessly on leftists, and indeed writers of all political inclinations, and thereby pushed U.S. democracy a little closer to the Soviet model of the surveillance state.

### Author Biography

**Joel Whitney** is a cofounder and editor at large of _Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics_. His writing has appeared in _The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Boston Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, Salon_, NPR, _New York Magazine_ and _The Sun_. With photographer Brett Van Ort, he co-wrote the 2013 TED Talks ebook on landmine eradication, _Minescape_. His poetry has appeared in _The Paris Review, The Nation_, and _Agni_. His Salon essay on _The Paris Review_ and the Congress for Cultural Freedom was a Notable in the _2013 Best American Essays_.

**Number of Pages:** 336

**Dimensions:** 1.2 x 8.3 x 5.7 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** January 10, 2017

## Details

- **Price:** 26.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 26.00 USD | In stock |

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- Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers - Hardcover

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