The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America

by Hugh Wilford

In 1967 the magazine Ramparts ran an exposé revealing that the Central Intelligence Agency had been secretly funding and managing a wide range of citizen front groups intended to counter communist influence around the world. In addition to embarrassing prominent individuals caught up, wittingly or unwittingly, in the secret superpower struggle for hearts and minds, the revelations of 1967 were one of the worst operational disasters in the history of American intelligence and presaged a series of public scandals from which the CIA's reputation has arguably never recovered. CIA official Frank Wisner called the operation his "mighty Wurlitzer," on which he could play any propaganda tune. In this illuminating book, Hugh Wilford provides the first comprehensive account of the clandestine relationship between the CIA and its front organizations. Using an unprecedented wealth of sources, he traces the rise and fall of America's Cold War front network from its origins in the 1940s to its Third World expansion during the 1950s and ultimate collapse in the 1960s. Covering the intelligence officers who masterminded the CIA's fronts as well as the involved citizen groups--émigrés, labor, intellectuals, artists, students, women, Catholics, African Americans, and journalists--Wilford provides a surprising analysis of Cold War society that contains valuable lessons for our own age of global conflict.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Conspiracy Theories, Espionage, The United States Of America

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

What readers will think about this book depends on what they already know. I thought it was okay; it's not that it didn't read well so much as how I've come to regard the Central Intelligence Agency. The book's unfortunate subtitle, "How the CIA played America," smacks of a conspiracy theory although it is the result of careful and often original research. Without the citations, it comes in at about 250 pages with a useful section of black and white photographs in the middle.

Most people are aware of the CIA's activities on behalf of the United States which have included the overthrow of countless governments. This author, Hugh Wilford, avoids that established subject to focus on the agency's role in propagating ideals that promote American values. Here he looks at how this was done during the Cold War, the battle against Soviet communism. His findings will enlighten, even fascinate, readers unfamiliar with that part of its mission. So my own rating is not meant as a blanket recommendation for all readers.

Our author looks at the CIA's infiltration of several movements from the end of World World II on. Besides labor, the agency was active in other areas, including women's rights, civil rights, the intelligentsia, cultural foundations, the student movement and broadcast journalism. He traces the influence of the CIA on each, ends his examination at the right time (1967) and concludes with comments about the present day (2007) role of the CIA.

The level of detail and research is solid, but the book's weakness is its point of view. Wilford speaks as a believer in American values criticizing others who act on those same values. He tells us what has gone wrong with the CIA in the past and where it may be going off track today, as with its heavy presence on college campuses and its disturbing freedom from its former legal accountability. But the author cannot put the pieces together into a big picture that would help us figure out what to think or do about what we've read.

The author's point of view has its reflection among those caught up in the CIA's underwriting of civic organizations. The agency, it turns out, often had little reason to try to control the message because the groups it infiltrated shared its values anyway.

One might expect this of some of the movements he mentions; but again and again, he shows, members of the "anti-communist left," the liberal establishment, act as active and complicit players in the dissemination of CIA-sponsored propaganda. At some point readers must wonder what the common glue is holding these seemingly disparate ideologies together, and for that they get an answer: "American values" in the sense of the United States as a capitalist social democracy.

What else strikes the reader, sooner or later, is the elite nature of all the compromised groups, even well known ones such as the NAACP and the AFL-CIO, not a one of which concerns itself with the ordinary Americans within its ken. Yale, Harvard and Park Avenue begin to look as if they were the exclusive nexus of American political and social activism. Activities and individuals falling outside this realm attract the attention of the CIA and our author only insofar as they represent the radical fringes of American society.

Because he cannot separate himself from this worldview, Wilford cannot pose the obvious question: By what reasoning is the identity of American values with capitalism and social democracy justified? Today, with the CIA part of an inconceivably vast intelligence and security apparatus, questions of just what constitutes a threat to the United States, which ideas or actions might be considered subversive and who gets to decide are completely absent from both the mass media and most public discourse. The insinuation that this problem has somehow already been settled has led to a dangerous lowering of the American public's consciousness on the issue.

The author does not see that point and does not raise it as an issue for readers to ponder. As a result, this apparent self-censorship largely prevents his book from doing what one might reasonably expect to help readers make sense of the the CIA's current role on the world stage. This lost opportunity detracts from an otherwise revealing work.

[Nils · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertainingly written post-revisionist social history of the CIA's effort from 1947 to 1967 to covertly fund and influence various US civil society groups, from painters and musicians to student groups and organized labor. "Post-revisionist" because, unlike Frances Stonor Saunders's work, which opened this area of historical inquiry with her "Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War" (1999) and whose very title suggests her thesis that the CIA basically called the tune on US cultural exports during these years, Wilford argues that while the CIA certainly sought to influence the direction of the organizations it covertly funded, it's not clear that it had very much success in doing so. (He also widens the scope of Saunders's inquiry to show that it was not just "highbrow culture" such as abstract expressionists and chromatic jazz musicians but a whole host middle- and even low-brow cultural organization's that the CIA funneled money to, including Committees on Correspondence and other hands-across-the-seamanship sorts of outfits.) Mostly, Wilford argues, its efforts went to support organizations and individuals who, while often deeply embarrassed either to discover or to have it revealed in 1967 that they had been more or less unwitting accomplices of the CIA, in fact were largely sympathetic to the anti-Communist and anti-Soviet project of the CIA. For Wilford, in other words, this was less a matter of covert control than inexplicit collaboration -- a collaboration that worked reasonably well so long as the early Cold War anti-Communist "vital center" consensus held in the United States. Most intriguingly, Wilford suggests that by the time the San Francisco based New Left magazine "Ramparts" broke the story and lifted the veil from these activities, some elements within the CIA may not have minded seeing these efforts get wound up, anyway. As the Vietnam War inexorably destroyed the post-WWII foreign policy consensus in the country, the confluence of interest between the CIA and various civil society actors dissipated. Put another way, the CIA hadn't really controlled anyone, according to Wilford, but rather had just been funding more or less useful idiots; once they stopped being so idiotic, they no longer were very useful. So while the Ramparts story was deeply embarrassing to the Agency, it was more of a symptom than a cause of the breakup of the "cultural cold war complex" of the long 1950s.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

For years before and during the Cold War, the CIA funneled money to various civic groups all throughout American society -
groups that spanned writers, reporters, actors, students, and homemakers.

The organizations, and people at the highest levels, had different levels of "witting" - knowledge of the CIA's involvement. And some were more comfortable with it then others. And in all cases, the CIA quickly found out that giving money to these groups did not mean that their control over their message and activies were absolute.

A fascinating read into a secret history of the CIA and its varying degree of influence of America's history and cultural legacy.

[Gabriel Schoenfeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the 1930s to the 1950s, under the direct supervision of Joseph Stalin, Communist parties around the world set up "front groups" -- organizations under their own control but not publicly affiliated with them -- to advance the interests of the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of World War II, America's fledgling CIA, seeking ways to counter Soviet influence in Europe and elsewhere, took a leaf from the adversary's playbook, covertly funding individuals and organizations that would advance the fortunes of the Free World. The CIA's conduct in this period has been much vilified in recent years. The Mighty Wurlitzer leaves room, often inadvertently, for a very different view.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to enjoy this book, but it simply was not what I had expected based on the title. It is certainly well-researched and well-written, but it did not appeal to my imagination. I recommend it if you're interested in history of the CIA, or socio-political groups of the 1950s. But if you're looking for cover-ups, scandals, and the like, this is probably not the book for you.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

a great explanation of what the cia has become without treating it as evil, even though it is

[Phil Semas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at how the CIA secretly backed private organizations for more than 20 years in its efforts to combat the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The secret financing of the National Student Association became widely known after it was exposed by Ramparts magazine in 1967, but this book recounts how the CIA’s clandestine support went well beyond that. One of the architects of the policy liked it to a Wurlitzer organ on which he could play whatever propaganda tune he wished.

After an introductory chapter that explains how the CIA’s use of front organization grew out off the theories of George F. Kennan, who is best known as the father of the theory of containment, Wilford devotes a chapter to each of the groups that the agency underwrote: emigres, organized labor, New York intellectuals, writers and artists, students, women, Catholics, and African Americans. The final chapter shows how the CIA manipulated journalists and often won their willing cooperation and then segues into how the Ramparts expose, followed by reports in The NewYork Times and other publications, brought the whole enterprise crashing down.

The book is deeply researched and extremely well written. It’s clear that Wilford knows his stuff, but he seldom gets bogged down in minutiae. The result is a fascinating tale that is worth reading by anyone interested in the history of the Cold War and the machinations of American intelligence agencies.

[Christie · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you knew nothing of "fake news" this book ties that up. The "deep state" has been inserting itself in virtually every facet of Americans' lives for decades.

A lot that is now common knowledge was omitted, such as Operation Mockingbird, the CIA operation to infiltrate news media. Mention was made of Henry Kissinger, but no mention of his BFF and trainee, Klaus Schwab of the WEF; a Kissinger invention.

A lot was whitewashed, but this will give you a general idea of how all of this mess, the lies, started.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a little on the dry side, and there are so many acronyms that the author provides a three-page key at the beginning. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone new to the subject matter—it assumes a basic existing knowledge of the time period and certain actors of it—but for deep nerds, it’s a good time.

[Jeff Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gets off to a good start but then it gets bogged down in minutia and office politics. I think this would be enjoyable for someone working in the CIA, but not so much for the interested outsider.

[Timothy A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat dry reading. Most of us can certainly understand the outrage the unwitting members of various organisations felt when they understood that they were used by the witting. The revelations of Ramparts magazine were huge. Such a revelation could not happen today without a repeat of the persecution that we have wittnessed with Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Julian Assange.