Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm

by Daniel J. Leab

Since its release in 1954, scholars have been aware of the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement in the making of the controversial animated motion picture adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm . In Orwell Subverted, Daniel Leab gives an authoritative and well-documented account of the CIA’s powerful influence on the film. Recently, a number of works have been written―notably, those by Frances Stoner Saunders and Tony Shaw―that make reference to the underlying governmental control surrounding Animal Farm . Yet there is still much speculation and confusion as to the depth of the CIA’s interference. Leab continues where these authors left off, exploring the CIA’s dominant hand through extensive research and by giving fascinating details of the agency’s overt and subtle influences on the making of the film. Leab’s thorough investigating makes use of sources that have been excluded in past accounts, such as CIA papers retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act and material from the Orwell Archive. He also incorporates the testimonials of animators John Halas and Joy Batchelor and, most significantly, the previously unexplored archive documents of Animal Farm producer Louis de Rochemont.

232 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2007

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the first analysis of the CIA's appropriation and subversion of Orwell's Animal Farm for the sake of its expensive and largely inept cultural propaganda program during the Cold War, but it is the most thorough. Casual readers of Orwell might find the wealth of details a bit much, but enthusiasts will find much to ponder. Frances Stoner Saunders' The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters also addresses this topic briefly but provides a much broader and equally fascinating study of how US intelligence used art and artists as pawns in its ideological battle with the Soviet Union.

[Mark Nenadov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great research into how "investors" (read: the CIA) funded and influenced the production of the Animal Farm cartoon in the 1950's. The research is really well done and this book is really unique. That said, if you aren't a major Orwell, animated film, or cold war aficionado, you will probably be bored with the details presented in about 50% of the book.

[John]

The CIA made your read it.