CIA funded anti-Mao scholarship 10/13/15, 2:50 PM

This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by
the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent
cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves
these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by
the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent
cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves
these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

CIA funded anti-Mao scholarship

The editor of the publication to publish the first academic accusations that
Mao's Great Leap Forward policies (1958-1960) resulted in the deaths of up
to 30 million Chinese recently admitted that the CIA funded his publication,
the China Quarterly. Roderick MacFarquhar claims he did not initially realize
what was happening in a letter to the London Review of Books.

In our previous review of MacFarquhar, this is what we said in January 2000:

Professor and department chair Roderick MacFarquhar at

Harvard University has long been a key figure in the extension of
the U.$. intelligence community known as "area studies" at
Harvard housed at the "Center for International Affairs," and
laughably abbreviated "CFIA" instead of "CIA." (The infamy has
resulted in a change of name to "Weatherhead Center.") Here the
most widely parroted "experts" speak on China and, in the bad
old days, the "Soviet Union." The Harvard area studies
committees typically make no effort to hide their usefulness to
U.$. intelligence. In this case, MacFarquhar further justifies this
image of Harvard's "Government Department" by being a former
member of the British parliament, an MP.

Some of our lazy critics believe MIM Notes throws around charges lightly. In
actual fact, we often have more hard evidence of what we are saying than
what we release.

The extent of military intelligence's penetration into Amerikan academia

poses a quandary for internationalists. On the one hand, without the impetus
of these intelligence agents, those going to college would have nothing but
McDonalds and Mickey Mouse to study, because area studies in colleges did
not exist before military intelligence realized it was losing out to the
communists such as Mao and Ho Chi Minh for lack of cultural and historical
knowledge. On the other hand, it is rather galling to see covertly CIA-
sponsored scholars attack social-fascist China today for having a government-

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controlled media and academia. So the trick for MIM is to let the public know
to some extent what is going on without generating too much cynicism about
studying foreign countries.

Thus far, MIM has let it be known that the major names we have seen in the
media bashing Stalin and Mao have generally had tight connections with the
U.S. Government or British Government. Contrary to our usual practice, this
week we also fingered Robert Scalapino, a Berkeley professor for U.S. Air
Force funding to spy on Zhou Enlai, but only in the context of a theory article
we wrote on the Western exposure of various communist leaders, not as a
matter of urgent media priority today. MacFarquhar has now admitted his
connection. The original estimates on the Great Leap came from Judith
Banister, a government official. Robert Conquest originated with British
intelligence. It seems that for the government mouthpieces at Associated
Press to notice someone, there has to be CIA approval first, as a Googling of
Associated Press and like-minded authors' articles on China will show.

The other galling thing about this is that military intelligence has cut such a
huge swath through academia and has so much money that the CIA can
discredit just about anyone by funding him or her. A common scholarship in
Chinese language originated with intelligence money and the same is
probably happening today with Arabic and Urdu. MIM cannot rule out that
from time to time, the CIA has internal fighting where it exposes itself as we
see with the Cheney-Libby scandal connected to outing CIA agent Valerie
Plame.

There has always been a kind of factional struggle in imperialist intelligence

agencies between propagandists and realists. Realists have argued that if
intelligence believes its own propaganda it is going to lose wars. For
example, anyone who believed any nonsense about Chiang Kai-shek was in
for a rude awakening. At the moment, the propagandist wing of military
intelligence is on the upswing with new appointees taking over and old
grudges settled.

Another reason for some air and sunlight is simply time. MacFarquhar now
has to set records straight, because his colleague Benjamin Schwartz died in
1999. Old Cold War tricks have to surface before too many people die off.

MacFarquhar offered the following email exchange November 27, 2005:

[Dear Roderick MacFarquhar:]

I am currently writing an article about the Great Leap Forward
which involves a review of some of the literature on the
subject.In the China Quarterly , edited by yourself, it is stated
that it was published by "Information Bulletin Ltd." on behalf of
"The Congress For Cultural Freedom." On 13 May 1967, the
General Assembly of the Congress for Cultural Freedom issued a
press release admitting that it was funded by the CIA. Of course,

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many of those involved in the CCF did not know about its
funding source.By drawing attention to this funding no slight is
intended to your professional integrity or character. However, an
issue remains. Surely , CIA funding of the CCF meant that on a
larger scale those with a negative view of communism had
access to a source of funding that others did not, as the CCF did
fund a number of journals with an anti-communist slant. This
served to skew the debate in favour of the anti-communists. In
terms of your own view of Mao's leadership, for example, it
seems to be largely a negative view, especially in relation to the
Great Leap Forward. While you were working on the China
Quarterly you had a state-funded platform for those views that
others did not. I would appreciate your comments on this
question which I would like to publish in my article, if
appropriate. Could you please reply within 3 weeks or email me
if you would like more time to answer my query, as I would like
to get the article published fairly soon.

Many thanks for your assistance.

[MacFarquhar replies:]

I hope the following is helpful.

When I was asked to be the founder editor of the CQ, it was

explained to me that the mission of the CCF was to encourage
Western intellectuals to form a community committed to the free
exchange of ideas. The aim was to provide some kind of an
organisational counter to Soviet efforts to attract Western
intellectuals into various front organisations. The CCF journals
helped to develop a democratic intellectual community obviously
by facilitating the exchange of ideas. All I was told about
funding was that the CCF was backed by a wide range of
foundations, including notably Ford, and the fact that, of these,
the Farfield Foundation was a CIA front was not disclosed.

From the very first issue, I tried to ensure that the CQ published
the widest possible range of views on China from the Western
right to the Western left, e.g. Wittfogel and Schwartz, and later
Joseph Alsop and his critics. I didn't mind where the author came
from as long as the views expressed were soundly based on the
evidence. For instance, I believe that an article by Philippe
Desvillers in our special issue on Vietnam was welcomed and
widely quoted by radical opponents of the Vietnam War. (I don't
have the CQ volumes in my office and so I am having to dredge
my memory.) Did I actively seek out somebody to write an
article approving of the Great Leap Forward. I don't remember
do ing so, and by 1960 when the first issue of the CQ appeared, it

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was already clear that it was a disaster, even if the full extent was
not to be revealed until after Mao's death. (Do you really think it
wasn't?) Had a communist like yourself submitted an article
defending the GLF, however, I almost certainly would have
published it as the basis for a debate, as in the case of Joe Alsop's
article on the 'descending spiral.'

But you are concerned with 'skewing the debate' against pro-
Maoists. Certainly the CQ was not a Maoist journal, but my
objective was not to run an anti-Mao polemical journal either. It
was a time when virtually the only people admitted to the PRC
were those regarded as friendly (Snow, Greene, Han Suyin) or
gullible (Field Marshal Montgomery). Under these conditions,
my aim was simply to publish objective analyses of Chinese
developments on the basis of whatever evidence could be
gleaned from whatever reliable sources. Philip Bridgham of the
CIA, for instance, provided some of the best such analyses of the
early Cultural Revolution based on the evidence available at the
time. Incidentally, I tried to avoid writing for the CQ while I was
editor; I think I published only one piece, on the Orientalists
Congress in Moscow in 1960.

BTW there were places where pro-GLF or pro-communist views

could be published: The New Left Review for instance; and
writers and scholars like I saac Deutscher, Joan Robinson had no
problem in making themselves heard in print.

MIM will only comment that last we checked the New Left Review of books
also has a jaundiced view of Mao and at times has refused pro-Mao articles.
We are also chastened for not propagating more of the positive side of the
Great Leap Forward instead of always having to rebut the more ridiculous
charges about it.

The influence of Amerikan military intelligence is such a large problem it is

difficult to handle. We recently criticized a newspaper calling itself
revolutionary for publishing one article by CIA agents about Iraq.
Ideologically of course it was wrong, but more importantly as policy it raises
questions particularly of intimidation. When we see the formerly
revolutionary press in Peru publish government documents about peace
accords we have to become suspicious who is really speaking. The bottom
line is we have to wonder when journalists have backed down in the face of
intimidation or when journalistic organizations have had infiltration changing
them beyond recognition. We also have to be careful not to throw out the
baby of truth with the bath water of government influence and intimidation.

Note:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n02/letters.html (London Review of Books, January
26, 2006)

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