‘Our greatest asset’ : Encounter Magazine and the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

This chapter examines Michael Josselson’s assertion that Encounter magazine represented the Congress for Cultural Freedom’s ‘greatest asset’. It considers the unpublished archival record, and the vexed question of the relation of CIA funding to Encounter’s editorial independence. However, it places the greatest emphasis on interpreting the contents of the magazine in the light of the details of contemporary periodical debates in London, and also within the larger intellectual currents of the cultural Cold War. Ultimately, Harding’s analysis reveals the extent to which Encounter transcended rather than conformed to the template set by other CCF journals