Dismissals of the Congress for Cultural Freedom’s representatives in Latin America as part of the strategy of “Opening to the Left” (1961-1964)

Abstract

This article reconstructs the history and the polemics surrounding an operation of dismissals of the Congress for Cultural Freedom’s [CCF] local representatives in Latin America carried out between 1961 and 1964. The operation was a consequence of adoption of the new guidelines -“Opening to the Left”- implemented as a basis of the new Latin American program in response to the Cuban Revolution by the CCF’s executives. The process of dismissals in the local Committees dismantled the original Latin American program of the CCF and affected mainly representatives proceeding from the Spanish exile diaspora. In fact, the operation became a culmination of a process of marginalization of the Spanish exiles within the CCF structures. The study highlights the CCF’s politics of limiting of the personal political and cultural agendas of those of its employees who entered into collision with the Congress’s general ideological changing strategies.