In 1956, New Yorker writer Dwight Macdonald joined Encounter, a magazine secretly backed by American and British security agencies. He arrived in London just as British Influencers turned a young Existentialist named Colin Wilson into England's answer to Jean-Paul Sartre. Meanwhile, the CIA incited a youth rebellion in communist Hungary. We investigate the covert propaganda behind Operation Free Youth Action and Operation Anti-Sartre and the Outsider’s influence on Macdonald’s famous critique of Mass and Middlebrow Culture.
Shownotes: Carole Ann Gill is the author of
Carole Ann, Sarah Roth wrote on
Operation Focus, Hugh Wilford is the author of
The Mighty Wurlitzer, Jelena Ćulibrk writes on
IRD and Newsreels, Gary Lachman is the author of
Beyond the Robot, Alfred Betschart writes on
Sartre, Stefan Collini is the author of
Absent Minds, Geoffrey Wheatcroft is the author of
Absent Friends.
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