The book by British journalist and documentary filmmaker Frances Stonor Saunders provides the first shocking evidence of CIA manipulation of cultural policy during the Cold War. Based on meticulously collected archival information, the author describes the CIA's activities in financing and coordinating left-wing intellectuals and cultural figures in Western Europe and the United States in order to alienate the intelligentsia from left-wing ideas, persuade them to fight against the USSR and instill sympathy for the “American way.” Created and supervised by the CIA, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, with offices in 35 countries, was the main mechanism and platform for this work, which involved such famous writers and philosophers as Raymond Aron, André Malraux, Arthur Koestler, George Orwell and many others.