An interesting tidbit I found, somewhat related:

> Employees of so‑called CIA “proprietaries.” During the past twenty‑five years, the Agency has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers—both English and foreign language—which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives. One such publication was the Rome Daily American, forty percent of which was owned by the CIA until the 1970s. The Daily American went out of business this year,

> "He had left the agency in 1953, after about two years, but he never divulged the details of his work for the organization"

Seems part of the deal for these kinds of job?

> "In terms of other materials, the CIA wouldn’t give me anything. I filed FOIA requests. I talked to their entertainment liaison, who works with Hollywood. But they don’t declassify personnel records."

The reciprocal part of the deal.

The 'old boys network' recruitment as we call it in the UK fits the pattern. I suppose that there was a desire to have eyes and ears among the new elite peer group.

I imagine that the Agency was compartmentalised so a cultural adjutant in Paris would not necessarily know about activities in Iran.

(The Snow Leopard remains a favourite book of mine).

I wonder about the biographer's practical judgment, though:

> I got very ill at that altitude. A doctor, when I got back, told me I had the symptoms of pulmonary edema. But it was worth it. I’d do it all again.

[Edit] Frank Kermode's memoir Not Entitled includes some interesting pages about the CIA funding of Encounter becoming publicly known.

This is actually a bit of a tell, because the best way to make ideology palatable is to make it seem like common sense (which is easy if that ideology is already in power). As zizek said, it is when you believe you have stepped outside ideology that you are most fully ensnared by it.

A lot of people think, "I am not ideological, I just use common sense, I am apolitical." Sorry but this is a game you must play whether you want to or not- trying to avoid making a choice is still making a choice.

Its like with fashion, for example- you may think that by wearing khaki shorts and sandals with socks that you are avoiding making fashion choices, but what is actually happening is that you are simply making very bad fashion choices.

I rather think that one of the psychological principles beneath authoritarianism is that making choices requires effort, and so people try to avoid it, and the easiest way to do that is by copying whatever everyone else is doing. When a person in this mode sees other people doing things that are different or unusual or out of place, they are reminded that in fact they have free will, and that other choices were always possible, and that is a disturbing and uncomfortable thought.

Operation Mockingbird 2.0 has been ongoing since at least 2005, and involves social media, smartphones, psychological profiles, and now AI handlers. It is still run by the CIA, but indirectly, instead using the Billionaires SummerCamp in Sun Valley Idaho as a yearly propaganda conference. Along with the bottomless purse that Citizen's United provided, they can now spend any amount of money on propaganda by using dark money superpacs.