ABSTRACT
Traces of the deeds of Latin American intellectuals during the Cold War are opening up in archives far away from the subcontinent, shedding light on the space for individual autonomy in a polarized world. Uruguayan intellectuals Aldo Solari and Vivian Trías are good cases in point to analyze these processes. New documentation has allowed for better understanding of their participation in political and intellectual networks leading up to the main powers of the global conflict. In the case of Trías, files from the Czechoslovakian intelligence service revealed he had been a paid agent for a foreign government. This involvement demands reconsideration of his role as mentor for those on the Left who claimed to be “national” in orientation and were openly critical of countries under socialist rule. In the case of Solari, it comes as a surprise how dense was his engagement with the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a key player in the Cultural Cold Wars funded by the CIA. Beyond manifest differences between the two cases, this chapter examines the range of possibilities that were open during this period to those intellectuals who aimed at internationalizing their careers and influencing the agenda of the networks they were part of. Additionally, this study evaluates the extent to which these options defined diverging modes of being an intellectual in these decades.
