ABSTRACT
The Berlin Congress proved a short-lived triumph for Josselson and the Congress for Cultural Freedom alike. Josselson remained in Germany, while the Congress’s course was being charted by the informal steering committee from Berlin – Burnham, Koestler, Lasky, and Brown. Within months of the Berlin Congress, the Congress was on the verge of collapse, and Josselson and Lasky’s longstanding partnership was upended. When Wisner decided in summer 1950 that OPC should permanently underwrite the Congress for Cultural Freedom in operation QKOPERA, OPC’s aims were amorphous. The Congress’s perceived purpose, said Wisner’s deputy Frank Lindsay, was “to strengthen European intellectuals against Communism.”1 Future DCI Richard Helms gave an equally broad description of the Congress’s objective: he simply felt that the “potential value” of “rallying” eminent antiCommunist intellectuals into a “counterforce” was “obvious.”2 If the Congress was going to resolve whether to focus primarily on cultural or political endeavors, that direction was not going to come from Washington. Wisner did, however, have one clear vision for the Congress: Melvin Lasky was not going to be part of it. That August, Wisner ordered Josselson to remove Lasky from further organizational work – or the Agency would refuse to give the Congress any more money. Wisner was adamant that, because of Lasky’s known status as an American official, his continued visibility was a “major blunder” that reflected “an unfortunate tendency . . . to succumb to the temptation of convenience (doing things the easy way) and irrespective of security and other technical considerations of the utmost importance.”3 Josselson unhappily complied. In the following months, Josselson and Lasky had a heart-to-heart, and Lasky reluctantly withdrew, realizing that “Mike had tried his best and been overruled,” as Lasky later told a colleague.4 (Rumors that Lasky himself was a CIA agent are unlikely.5 Lasky almost certainly knew of OPC’s involvement early on, but OPC considered him unwitting as of the Berlin Congress. “If there were anybody in the Congress setup who would make the CIA bureaucrats gnash their teeth,” one CIA officer explained, “it was Mel. Mel was too much. He was brilliant, but impossible at human relations.”6) In September 1950, Josselson unexpectedly resigned from his post in Berlin
but incomplete explanation to his colleagues in the Congress. “While stopping off in Paris on my way back to the United States,” he claimed, “I let myself be persuaded to help organize the Congress for Cultural Freedom.”8 Josselson purportedly planned to resume work as a department store buyer, but “my close association with writers, publishing, and other intellectual pursuits during the five years after the war had created in me a strong distaste for what is called the dry goods business.” So “when it was suggested to me that I should take on the task of creating a permanent organization fathered by the Berlin Congress, I willingly accepted.”9 Josselson’s presence in Paris was in fact Wisner’s decision. By September 1950, the Congress had done little and was crippled by infighting. Josselson – a known quantity to many of the intellectuals involved – was a logical choice to straighten the mess out. But his position at first seemed temporary. He did not even arrive with a plausible cover reason for his perennial visits to the Congress’s Paris headquarters.10 Josselson and his case officer, Lawrence de Neuf ville, even set up a provisional apartment together – a move that would have raised obvious security concerns had Josselson planned to stay long under nonofficial cover.11
