Congress for Cultural Freedom/Founding Conference
The founding conference of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), 26-29 June 1950 in West Berlin, was attended by leading intellectuals from the U.S. and Western Europe.[1]
Funding
Although Michael Josselson was officially the only member of the CCF to be aware of CIA funding, it is likely that a number of prominent Congress members were observant and intelligent enough to connect the dots, according to Peter Coleman in The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Post-War Europe, who argues that Congress members must have been observant enough to wonder how at a time when Europe was still recovering economically from WWII, money was liberally spent to cover travel costs, provide meals at high end restaurants and host attendees of CCF conferences in five-star hotels.[2]Coleman also points out that Hook later noted that even at the time of the 1950 Berlin Conference there was "a culpable incuriosity about funding in Congress circles."[3]
Particpants
Participants. Raymond Aron intended to attend, but may not have made it[2]
Known Participants
17 of the 93 of the participants already have pages here:
| Participant | Description |
|---|---|
| Julian Amery | MI6, deep politician who chaired Le Cercle for several years. |
| Raymond Aron | French sociologist who attended 3 Bilderbergs from 1957 to 1966 |
| Irving Brown | US Trade unionist and and consigliere for the CIA who attended the 1956 Bilderberg |
| James Burnham | "The first neoconservative", spooky propagandist philosopher |
| Sidney Hook | American philosopher and anti-communist activist. |
| Arthur Schlesinger Jr. | |
| Melvin Lasky | US journalist, intellectual, with suspected CIA ties |
| Haakon Lie | powerful party secretary for the Norwegian Labour Party from 1945 to 1969. A CIA collaborator, he was the most prominent organizer of McCarthyism in the 1950s, and set up an extensive surveillance apparatus in the Labour movement and unions. |
| Richard Löwenthal | A Jewish exile from Nazi Germany, he soon was attached to US and UK intelligence services. After the war became a major intellectual in the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and often consulted by the SPD’s leaders, especially Willy Brandt and Ernst Reuter. He attended the 1968 Bilderberg conference. |
| Fritz Molden | Austrian journalist, publisher, diplomat who attended 2 Bilderbergs in the 1950s |
| Malcolm Muggeridge | |
| Lawrence de Neufville | OSS agent, recruited by John Baker into the CIA |
| Denis de Rougement | Attended the first 4 Bilderbergs. Promoted European federalism |
| Bertrand Russell | UK philosopher and pacifist |
| Carlo Schmid | Founder member of the Bilderberg Steering committee |
| Altiero Spinelli | Italian politician, referred to as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. |
| Hugh Trevor-Roper |
References
- ↑ https://www.filosofia.org/mon/cul/clc_043.htm
- ↑ a b In Peter Coleman THE LIBERAL CONSPIRACY The Congress for Cultural Freeedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe, page 20-22
- ↑ Sidney Hook, Out of Step, (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 451
