---
aliases:
- Melvin J. Lasky
- Melvin Lasky
- Melvin Jonah Lasky
- Lasky
category: Authors & Journalists
created: 2026-10-09
end: 2004
location: New York; Berlin; London; Munich
relations:
- end: 1946
  fn: 3
  role: second lieutenant with the Army's historical branch, attached to the Seventh
    Army information and historical section
  start: 1945-01
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[United States Army]]'
- end: 1947-10
  fn: 5
  role: delivered an address on freedom of the mind at the congress of October 4 to
    8, 1947
  start: 1947-10
  type: participant_in
  with: '[[First German Writers'' Congress]]'
- fn: 10
  role: founding editor of the German-language journal; first issue October 1, 1948
  start: 1948-10
  type: founded
  with: '[[Der Monat]]'
- fn: 10
  role: editor with Hellmut Jaesrich; the journal passed from the American High Commission
    to a private German publishing company on October 1, 1954
  start: 1948-10
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Der Monat]]'
- end: 1950-11
  fn: 11
  role: one of the initiators of the Berlin conference; removed from overt roles by
    November 1950 under pressure from the CIA
  start: 1950-06
  type: founded
  with: '[[Congress for Cultural Freedom]]'
- fn: 11
  role: employee of the American occupation government in Berlin, per the CIA history
    of the congress
  start: 1947
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Office of Military Government for Germany, United States]]'
- end: 1990-09
  fn: 19
  role: co-editor with Stephen Spender from the December 1958 issue, succeeding Irving
    Kristol; the BnF record and the September 1990 masthead end the run in 1990, Reason
    gives June 1991
  start: 1958-12
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Encounter]]'
start: 1920
summary: American journalist and editor who founded Der Monat in 1948, helped initiate
  the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and co-edited Encounter from December 1958 until
  the magazine closed.
tags:
- Person
- MelvinLasky
- DerMonat
- Encounter
- CongressForCulturalFreedom
- InternationalAssociationForCulturalFreedom
- ColdWar
- CulturalColdWar
- FirstGermanWritersCongress
- BerlinCongress1950
- UnitedStatesArmy
- CentralIntelligenceAgency
- MichaelJosselson
- FrankWisner
- FordFoundation
title: Melvin J. Lasky
updated: 2026-10-09
---

Melvin Jonah Lasky (1920 to 2004) was an American journalist and magazine editor. He was born in [New York City](/places/new-york-city/) on January 15, 1920, served as a combat historian with the [United States Army](/organizations/us-army/) during the Second World War, founded the German-language journal Der Monat in [Berlin](/places/berlin/) in 1948, helped initiate the [Congress for Cultural Freedom](/organizations/congress-for-cultural-freedom/), and co-edited the [London](/places/london/) monthly Encounter from 1958. He died at his home in Berlin on May 19, 2004.[^1][^2]

### Army service, 1945 to 1946

Lasky was a second lieutenant when he began a diary on January 22, 1945 at Fort Totten, New York, while waiting to be shipped to Europe. He concluded it in [Frankfurt](/places/frankfurt/) on December 19, 1945. As a trained historian he secured a place in the Army's historical branch, attached to the Seventh United States Army information and historical section, and the diary records the reporting trips he made with frontline units.[^3][^4] A brief excerpt, "Travel Diary in Germany," appeared anonymously in the magazine Common Sense in June 1945.[^3] Lasky left the military in 1946.[^3]

The typescript, 250 pages long, was not published until 2022, when Charlotte A. Lerg edited it as The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky: Into Germany at the End of World War II, with an introduction by Lerg and Maren Roth. Lasky's assistant, Marc Svetov, found the typescript in three ring binders after Lasky's death.[^3]

### The Berlin writers' congress, 1947

The First German Writers' Congress met from October 4 to 8, 1947, convened by the Kulturbund with Ricarda Huch presiding. Karol Kubicki, who attended, placed the congress in the Admiralspalast and wrote that Lasky opened a sustained attack on the Communists, who in their zone were suppressing freedom of the word. The hall split after about thirty minutes, and Kubicki described the congress as the last all-German writers' congress.[^5] Jüdische Allgemeine places the speech in the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin and reports that Huch alone supported Lasky's criticism of Soviet censorship.[^6]

Lasky wrote in The Nation in 1967 that he had been invited as a free-lance American journalist to make a brief talk to the first postwar German writers' congress, that his theme was the need to resist all forms of censorship anywhere, that the talk was controversial given the Russian venue, and that there was vigorous discussion. He denied that he had led a walk-out of anti-Communists from the meeting.[^7] The speech, titled "Von der geistigen Freiheit," was printed in Die Neue Zeitung on October 10, 1947 with the reply of the Soviet writer Valentin Kataev, who said he had heard the speech of the unknown writer Lasky and was very glad finally to see a living warmonger.[^8] Hans Mayer later wrote that it was a speech meant to divide and not to unite.[^9] Der Spiegel wrote in 1954 that Lasky read the speech from his manuscript.[^10]

Kubicki also wrote that, at Lasky's initiative, the Congress for Cultural Freedom was installed as a permanent institution in the American sector and the journal Der Monat was founded.[^5]

### Der Monat, 1948 to 1958

According to Der Spiegel, a colonel named Textor, the information chief of General Lucius D. Clay, offered Lasky the editorship of a serious monthly in which Soviet ideology was to be fought on the highest cultural level, after the 1947 speech. Lasky brought in the German publicist Hellmut Jaesrich as co-editor. The first issue appeared on October 1, 1948 in the blockaded city, its manuscripts edited by candlelight, flown to Munich for printing and the bales of finished copies flown back in.[^10] The CIA history of the congress describes the journal as "a journal sponsored by the American occupation government that brought Western writers once more into the ken of the German public." It also calls Lasky "an employee of the American occupation government."[^11] The AP obituary has Lasky reporting in Der Monat on the East German uprising of 1953 and the Hungarian revolution of 1956, and says the magazine caused a scandal in Germany in the 1960s when it came to light that it was partly funded by the CIA.[^2] The writer Edward McLaren wrote that Lasky had received Marshall Aid funding for Der Monat and that in 1947 he wrote a message to General Clay that became known as "The Melvin Lasky Proposal."[^12]

Der Spiegel reported on October 13, 1954 that a telex of March 1954, signed by Alfred Boerner, head of the Public Affairs division of the American High Commission (HICOG), instructed Lasky to order no further articles after June 30 because HICOG sponsorship of Der Monat would end with the financial year. From October 1 the journal ceased to be an organ of the American occupation authorities and became a private enterprise, published by a newly founded Verlagsgesellschaft fuer internationale Publizistik. Der Spiegel named it the first case in which a former HICOG periodical was transferred into a German publishing house with private American money. The magazine wrote that the transition was eased by a single grant of 175,000 dollars from the [Ford Foundation](/organizations/ford-foundation/), that [John J. McCloy](/people/john-j-mccloy/) and Shepard Stone, formerly director of Public Affairs at HICOG, were among the Ford officials friendly to the magazine, that the grant carried no conditions, and that the Ford representatives declined a seat on the board of the new publishing company.[^10]

The Ford Foundation's annual report for 1954 states: "Der Monat was established in 1948 by United States Government authorities in an effort to encourage democratic trends in the intellectual life of postwar Germany and to develop contacts between the intellectual leaders of Germany and of the free nations. United States Government support for Der Monat ceased in 1954." The foundation appropriated 175,000 dollars in 1954 to assist the review, covering a three-year period, with the Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Publizistik (International Publications, Inc.) as grantee.[^13] The foundation's grant lists for 1955 through 1958 carry further entries for International Publications, Inc. (Berlin) described as support or publication of the monthly international review Der Monat.[^14] Lasky wrote in The Nation in 1967 that for ten years he had edited Der Monat in Berlin, "until 1954 for the USIA, and thereafter (after a brief losing battle with McCarthyism) under a direct Ford Foundation grant."[^7]

A 1996 review in Partisan Review quotes a passage that reads "Thus it was decided to terminate Der Monat, which was financed by the military authorities." The same review states that "It was believed that he was an agent of American intelligence" and that "The documents show that Lasky was anything but persona grata in Washington," and says the journal survived through the support of McCloy and others who had known Lasky in Berlin.[^15] Jüdische Allgemeine states that the Congress for Cultural Freedom financed the magazine for several years, and that the congress was itself fed by intelligence-service money.[^6] The University of Chicago holds the records of Der Monat as a separate collection from the congress's own records.[^16]

### Berlin, 1949 to 1950

Lasky met the former Communists Franz Borkenau and Ruth Fischer in Frankfurt in August 1949, and the three hatched a plan for a conference of the non-Communist Left in Berlin the following year. Lasky was 29.[^11] [Michael Josselson](/people/michael-josselson/) took up the plan, and his proposal reached [Washington, D.C.](/places/washington-dc/) in January 1950, on or about January 25. In late December Lasky sent a proposal of his own to the philosopher Sidney Hook, who replied on January 11, 1950. Officers of the Office of Policy Coordination met on February 6 and gave Josselson the go-ahead.[^11][^17]

[Frank Wisner](/people/frank-wisner/), head of the Office of Policy Coordination, approved a 50,000-dollar project on April 7, 1950 and wanted Lasky and James Burnham kept out of sight in Berlin, for fear that their presence would give ammunition to Communist critics.[^11][^17] According to the CIA history, Lasky "had appointed himself the driving force behind the event," and Josselson cabled that "No other person here, certainly no German, could have achieved such success."[^17] The same history notes that Communist organs, on the eve of the congress, would accuse Lasky of being an agent of the US Army and of "the American secret service," citing a June 25, 1950 New York Times report headed "Paper in Soviet Zone Hits Culture Parley."[^17] The congress opened at the Titania Palace in West Berlin on June 26, 1950.[^11]

A memorandum of August 4, 1950 from Louis Glaser to Frank Lindsay recorded Lasky's activities in connection with the congress under the project name PDQUICK.[^17] Wisner's memorandum of August 8, 1950 to C. D. G. Breckinridge, "Berlin Congress for Cultural Freedom; activities of Melvin Lasky," began that he remained "very disturbed" at the non-observance of his memorandum of April 7, in which he had approved the project "subject to the condition that Lasky would not be permitted to figure publicly in this operation." It called Lasky's conduct "a major blunder," and stated: "unless means can be found to sanitize this operation by the removal of Lasky, Burnham and other persons of known or traceable official significance from overt roles in the proposed continuing organization, then I am unwilling to have OPC continue its backing." A postscript recorded that General Magruder had shown a report on the congress to Secretary Johnson, who had shown it to the President, "who expressed himself as being very well pleased."[^18] The CIA history adds that Wisner described Lasky's visibility as "a major blunder," recognized as such "by our best friends in the Department of State," and that Josselson cabled a protest. In its words, "Lasky had to go, and OPC contrived to have him removed from the project and canceled his operational clearance."[^17]

The steering committee formally established the congress as a permanent body on November 27, 1950, with Denis de Rougemont as president of its executive committee, after Lasky and Burnham had been removed from prominent roles.[^11][^17]

### Encounter, 1958 to 1990

Encounter was published in London from October 1953, and its first issue named Stephen Spender and Irving Kristol as editors. The mastheads of the issues through November 1958 carry those two names; the December 1958 issue (volume XI, number 6) reads "edited by Stephen Spender and Melvin J. Lasky."[^19] Reason wrote that Lasky took over Encounter from Kristol in 1958.[^20] The Bibliotheque nationale de France catalogue lists Lasky as directeur de publication from 1958 and Kristol from 1953 to 1958, and gives the run of the magazine as 1953 to 1990, ending with the September 1990 issue.[^21] The September 1990 masthead (volume LXXV, number 2) names Lasky and Anthony Hartley as editors.[^19] Reason gives the demise as June 1991, the New Criterion places the closure in 1991, and the Associated Press obituary gives Lasky's editorship as running from 1953 to 1991.[^2][^20][^22] A 2025 essay gives the end as 1990.[^12]

Thomas W. Braden, who had headed the [Central Intelligence Agency](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)'s International Organizations Division, wrote in 1967: "Money for both the orchestra's tour and the magazine came from the CIA, and few outside the CIA knew about it." He continued that the agency had placed one agent in the Congress for Cultural Freedom and that "Another agent became an editor of Encounter."[^23]

The New Criterion obituary states that Lasky graduated from City College of New York in the same class as Kristol and Seymour Martin Lipset, that he moved to London in the late 1950s to take over the co-editorship with Spender, and that his books included The Hungarian Revolution (1957), Africa for Beginners and Utopia and Revolution (1977). It quotes Sidney Hook, writing in 1985, on Lasky's "extraordinary intellectual and moral courage."[^22]

### The 1966 and 1967 disclosures

On May 10, 1966, Spender, Lasky and Kristol wrote letters to the editor of the [New York Times](/organizations/new-york-times/), published in May 1966.[^24] In a letter to the [Wall Street Journal](/organizations/the-wall-street-journal/), filed in the CIA's copy with a stamp of April 8, 1974, Lasky wrote that he had not called the congress a CIA front, that "A 'front' in common political usage refers to a phony body set up for manipulative purposes," and that the congress "was never that, although most of its financial support came, as is now well known, from American foundations many of which derived their funds from the CIA."[^25]

In The Nation of October 2, 1967, replying to an essay by Christopher Lasch on "The Cultural Cold War" in the issue of September 11, Lasky wrote that he had already stated publicly in the London Times of May 9 that Braden's allegation was untrue; that when he became an editor of Encounter in 1958, at the invitation of the then co-editors, he "had no knowledge of the CIA's involvement and was, then as now, nobody's agent"; and that when he "subsequently became aware that some of the grants which various U.S. donors gave to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to help subsidize Encounter's publishing deficit were not in fact private but covert governmental funds, I did everything in my power to end this. In 1964, Cecil Harmsworth King and the Daily Mirror group in London took over the financial sponsorship of Encounter." He also wrote that he had never been a Communist and that there had been no resignation by him from Encounter. Lasch replied in the same issue that the New York Times of May 9 had reported that Lasky "won a vote of confidence today from the magazine's backers and decided to stay on the job," and asked why Lasky had not confided his suspicions to his colleagues.[^7]

In 1967, according to McLaren, Lasky wrote to Isaiah Berlin that "IF there were an agent planted in Encounter …it could only have been Kristol or Spender." As a consequence, McLaren wrote, Spender resigned and Kristol threatened to sue Braden, leaving Lasky the only acting editor. Frank Kermode returned to the magazine after the International Publishing Corporation of London took over its financial burden from the CIA. The New York Times later that year reported that Lasky would stay on.[^12] The July 1967 issue of Encounter carried a notice from its trustees, Edward Shils, Andrew Shonfield, Sir William Haley and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., regretting that Spender and Kermode had resigned, stating that Lasky "has agreed to remain as co-Editor," that Nigel Dennis had been appointed the other co-editor, and that before 1964 the magazine was financially supported by the Congress for Cultural Freedom and subsequently by the International Publishing Corporation, chaired by Cecil H. King. The June 1967 masthead read "Edited by Frank Kermode and Melvin J. Lasky," with Spender as corresponding editor for the United States.[^19][^26]

McLaren also quotes the philosopher Richard Wollheim, who recalled confronting Lasky and Spender with the rumour that the magazine was CIA-funded several years earlier, when he had been asked to join its board. Lasky answered: "Nothing easier. You can inspect the accounts, and see for yourself."[^12] McLaren states that Lasky went on to admit that he knew about the CIA funding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom from long before 1963. Michael Josselson told a Sunday Telegraph interviewer in 1967 that he was the sole person in the congress who knew its money came from the CIA, a statement McLaren attributes to the writer Sarah Miller Harris.[^12]

Frances Stonor Saunders's 1999 study of the congress's CIA connections is described by Lerg and Roth as focusing on those connections, and as one that "at times jumps to conclusions."[^3]

### Later work and papers

In 1975 Lasky published "Ulrike and Andreas" in The New York Times Magazine.[^27] His papers were donated to Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 2008 and are held by the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies. The collection includes about 3,500 letters, calendars, New York and Berlin diaries, notebooks from travels to Africa and India, and reports from his postwar work for the US Army. Correspondents include Hannah Arendt, Daniel Bell, Isaiah Berlin, Friedrich von Hayek, Sidney Hook, [George Kennan](/people/george-kennan/), Irving Kristol, Golo Mann, Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling.[^3][^28]

The Lasky Library at the same center holds about 10,000 volumes. The center's holdings complement the congress records at the University of Chicago and the Encounter archive at Boston University.[^28]

### Death

Lasky died at his home in Berlin on May 19, 2004, aged 84, of a heart ailment. The AP obituary says he interviewed Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt and Vaclav Havel, and that after entering Berlin with Clay's military government contingent he was close to being expelled by Clay in 1948 when Moscow imposed the Berlin Blockade, until Clay reversed course and hired him as an adviser, an account the AP attributes to Lasky's own website.[^2] The New York Times published an obituary headed "Melvin J. Lasky, Cultural Cold Warrior, Is Dead at 84" on May 22, 2004.[^29] The Washington Post obituary, as quoted by Reason, called him an "outspoken anti-communist" and recalled that "His critics enjoyed tweaking him by pointing out a visible irony," since "he looked exactly like V.I. Lenin."[^20]

[^1]: Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, catalogue authority record for "Lasky, Melvin J. (1920-2004), Journalist, Herausgeber, Autor" (lifespan 15.01.1920 to 19.05.2004; born New York, died Berlin; linked to Encounter (1953-1991) and Der Monat). https://www.dla-marbach.de/en/catalogue/find/opac/id/PE00055073/
[^2]: Associated Press, "Anti-communist journalist Melvin Lasky dies," May 27, 2004, carried by NBC News. Died at his home in Berlin, aged 84, of a heart ailment on May 19; combat historian during the war; entered Berlin with the military government contingent; co-founded Der Monat in 1948 and reported on the 1953 East German uprising and the 1956 Hungarian revolution; the magazine caused a scandal in Germany in the 1960s when it came to light that it was partly funded by the CIA; 15 years at Der Monat; gives Encounter as edited "from 1953 to 1991"; interviews with Churchill, Eisenhower, Adenauer, Brandt and Havel; the Clay anecdote is attributed by the AP to Lasky's website. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5078030
[^3]: Charlotte A. Lerg and Maren Roth, introduction to Charlotte A. Lerg, ed., The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky: Into Germany at the End of World War II (Berghahn Books, 2022). Diary begun January 22, 1945 at Fort Totten and concluded in Frankfurt on December 19, 1945; 250-page typescript; Second Lieutenant Lasky; Army Historical Branch and the 7th Army Information and Historical Section; excerpt in Common Sense, June 1945; left the military in 1946; typescript found by Marc Svetov after May 19, 2004; papers donated to Ludwig Maximilian University in 2008; note 2 on Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (Granta, 1999); bibliography entry for the New York Times obituary. https://www.v1.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/LergDiary_intro.pdf and https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/LergDiary
[^4]: Review of Charlotte A. Lerg, ed., The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky, "Reports from a Cold Crater," Los Angeles Review of Books. Account of the bird-dog expeditions and fact-finding trips with frontline troops; the Historical Section; Lasky's entry for April 22 on his colleagues. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/reports-from-a-cold-crater-on-charlotte-a-lergs-the-diary-of-lt-melvin-j-lasky
[^5]: Karol Kubicki, "Erinnerung an einen allerletzten Gesprächsversuch im Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands," memoir of the October 1947 congress, pp. 125 ff. Admiralspalast venue; Lasky's attack on Communist suppression of the word; the hall dividing after thirty minutes; Lasky's initiative for the Congress for Cultural Freedom and Der Monat; the Der Monat imprint. Translated by the drafter. https://zeitschrift-fsed.fu-berlin.de/index.php/zfsed/article/download/745/786/1478
[^6]: Jüdische Allgemeine, profile of Melvin J. Lasky ("Blattmacher, Wahl-Berliner, Freiheitsfreund"). Born in the Bronx on January 15, 1920 to Jewish-Polish immigrants; military historian with the 7th US Army; First German Writers' Congress speech at the Deutsches Theater, with Ricarda Huch as the only supporter; Congress for Cultural Freedom financing of Der Monat, itself fed by intelligence-service money; Encounter edited from London from 1958; return to Berlin in 1989. https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/kultur/blattmacher-wahlberliner-freiheitsfreund
[^7]: Melvin J. Lasky, letter to the editors, and Christopher Lasch, reply, The Nation, October 2, 1967, p. 309 (letters on Lasch's "The Cultural Cold War," The Nation, September 11, 1967), CIA reading room copy of a Saturday Review clipping file, CIA-RDP88-01315R000200270001-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000200270001-6
[^8]: Sabine Rollberg, Von der Auferstehung des Geistes: eine Analyse des Feuilletons der Neuen Zeitung 1945-1949 (inaugural dissertation, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Bonn 1981), notes citing Melville Lasky, "Von der geistigen Freiheit," Die Neue Zeitung, October 10, 1947, and the reply of Kataev printed in its introduction: "Ich habe die Rede des unbekannten Schriftstellers Lasky gehört. Ich bin sehr erfreut, endlich einen lebenden Kriegsbrandstifter zu Gesicht zu bekommen." Translated by the reviewer. https://archive.org/details/IA41543108_0013
[^9]: Hans Mayer, Ein Deutscher auf Widerruf: Erinnerungen (Suhrkamp, 1982), on the 1947 congress: "Es war eine Rede, die Spaltung beabsichtigte, nicht Gemeinsamkeit." https://archive.org/details/eindeutscheraufw0000maye
[^10]: "Monat: Umzug ins Privatquartier," Der Spiegel, October 13, 1954, Press section. Telex of March 1954 signed Alfred Boerner; HICOG sponsorship ending with the financial year; Der Monat a private enterprise from October 1; the Ford Foundation grant of 175,000 dollars, McCloy and Shepard Stone, refusal of a board seat; Lasky's 1947 speech read from his manuscript; Colonel Textor's offer; Hellmut Jaesrich as co-editor; first issue October 1, 1948. Translated by the reviewer. https://archive.org/details/sim_spiegel_1954-10-13_8_42
[^11]: Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, "Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-1950," Studies in Intelligence, vol. 38, no. 5. Der Monat "a journal sponsored by the American occupation government"; Lasky as "an employee of the American occupation government"; the August 1949 Frankfurt meeting with Borkenau and Fischer; Lasky "only 29"; Josselson's proposal reaching Washington in January 1950; Wisner's approval of the project outline on April 7 and the fear of ammunition to Communist critics; the Congress opening at the Titania Palace on 26 June 1950; Lasky and Burnham removed from prominent roles; permanent organization in November 1950. https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/archives/vol-38-no-5/origins-of-the-congress-for-cultural-freedom-1949-1950
[^12]: Edward McLaren, "How the CIA secretly funded Encounter," guest essay on The Common Reader, September 15, 2025. The Marshall Aid statement and the 1947 message to Clay ("The Melvin Lasky Proposal"); the letter to Isaiah Berlin; Spender's resignation, Kristol's threat to sue Braden, Kermode's return and the New York Times report that Lasky would stay on; the Wollheim recollection and Lasky's reply; Lasky's admission that he knew of the funding from long before 1963; the magazine lasting until 1990; Josselson's statement to the Sunday Telegraph as relayed by Sarah Miller Harris. https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/stephen-spender-and-the-cia
[^13]: Ford Foundation, Annual Report 1954, section "Der Monat" (International Affairs). https://www.fordfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/1954-annual-report.pdf
[^14]: Ford Foundation, Annual Reports 1955, 1956, 1957 and 1958, grant lists, entries for International Publications, Inc. ("Support of the monthly international review, 'Der Monat'"; "Publication of the monthly international review, 'Der Monat'"; 1957 and 1958 "International Publications, Inc. (Berlin) Support of the international review 'Der Monat'"). https://www.fordfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/1955-annual-report.pdf and the same path for 1956, 1957 and 1958.
[^15]: Partisan Review, vol. 63, no. 2 (1996), p. 192, review passages on Der Monat ("Thus it was decided to terminate Der Monat, which was financed by the military authorities"), the belief that Lasky was an agent of American intelligence, Lasky's standing in Washington, and the support of McCloy. https://www.bu.edu/partisanreview/books/PR1996V63N2/HTML/files/assets/basic-html/page22.html
[^16]: University of Chicago Library, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, "Guide to the International Association for Cultural Freedom Records 1941-1978," scope note (Der Monat "form a separate collection"). https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.IACF
[^17]: CIA history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom's origins, National Archives, Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel release 2014-090, Doc. 1, pt. 3 of 12. Josselson proposal reaching OPC headquarters on or about January 25, 1950; Lasky's proposal to Hook in late December and Hook's reply of January 11, 1950; the OPC meeting of February 6; Wisner's approval of the 50,000-dollar project on April 7, 1950; Lasky as "the driving force behind the event"; Josselson's cable; note 63 citing New York Times, June 25, 1950, p. 5, "Paper in Soviet Zone Hits Culture Parley"; Louis Glaser to Frank Lindsay, "Activities of Mr. Melvin Lasky in connection with Congress for Cultural Freedom (Project PDQUICK)," August 4, 1950; Wisner to Breckinridge, August 8, 1950, and "a major blunder"; "Lasky had to go"; formal establishment of the congress on November 27, 1950. https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2014-090-doc-1-part-3.pdf
[^18]: Memorandum for Mr. Breckinridge, "Berlin Congress for Cultural Freedom; activities of Melvin Lasky," signed F.G.W. (Frank G. Wisner), August 8, 1950, with postscript, CIA reading room copy released March 2006. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001318530
[^19]: Encounter mastheads: October 1953 (vol. 1, no. 1, "Edited by Stephen Spender and Irving Kristol"); January, May, June, July, September and November 1958 (same editors); December 1958 (vol. XI, no. 6, "edited by Stephen Spender and Melvin J. Lasky"); January 1959; June 1967 (vol. XXVIII, no. 6, "Edited by Frank Kermode and Melvin J. Lasky," corresponding editor U.S.A. Stephen Spender); September 1990 (vol. LXXV, no. 2, editors Melvin J. Lasky and Anthony Hartley). Scans at https://archive.org/details/encounter-1953-1990
[^20]: Reason, "Cold Warrior," June 2, 2004. Lasky took over Encounter from Irving Kristol in 1958; the magazine ran until June 1991; quotations from the Washington Post obituary. https://reason.com/2004/06/02/cold-warrior/
[^21]: Bibliotheque nationale de France catalogue record cb34465822k, "Encounter (London. 1953)," vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 1953) to vol. 75, no. 2 (Sept. 1990); entries for Lasky, Melvin J. (1920-2004), directeur de publication from 1958, and Kristol, Irving (1920-2009), directeur de publication from 1953 to 1958. https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb34465822k
[^22]: The New Criterion, "Melvin J. Lasky, 1920-2004," Notes & Comments, June 2004. https://newcriterion.com/article/melvin-j-lasky-1920-2004/
[^23]: Thomas W. Braden, "I'm Glad the CIA Is 'Immoral,'" Saturday Evening Post, May 20, 1967, pp. 10, 12, 14, as excerpted in the CIA reading room copies cia-rdp88-01315r000100430001-9 and cia-rdp88-01315r000200450001-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000100430001-9
[^24]: Harm Langenkamp, "A Most Interesting and Complex Involvement," note 62, citing letters to the New York Times editor by Stephen Spender, Melvin Lasky and Irving Kristol, May 10, 1966. https://rockarch.issuelab.org/resources/38323/38323.pdf
[^25]: Melvin J. Lasky, letter to the editor, "Encounter and the CIA," The Wall Street Journal (responding to its issue of March 22), CIA reading room copy stamped 8 April 1974, CIA-RDP88-01315R000200270001-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp88-01315r000200270001-6
[^26]: Encounter, July 1967 (vol. XXIX, no. 1), notice by the trustees (Edward Shils, Andrew Shonfield, Sir William Haley, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.) and note on Nigel Dennis as co-editor. https://archive.org/details/encounter-1953-1990
[^27]: Melvin J. Lasky, "'Ulrike and Andreas,'" The New York Times Magazine, May 21, 1975. CIA reading room copy. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp79-01194a000100380001-4
[^28]: American History, Culture and Society, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, "Lasky Archive," description of the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies holdings: about 3,500 letters, calendars, New York and Berlin diaries; Lasky Library of about 10,000 volumes; named correspondents; complementary collections at Chicago and Boston University. https://www.en.amerikanistik.uni-muenchen.de/research/archive/lasky-archiv/index.html
[^29]: New York Times, "Melvin J. Lasky, Cultural Cold Warrior, Is Dead at 84," May 22, 2004, Section B, p. 16, as cited in Charlotte A. Lerg and Maren Roth, introduction to The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky, bibliography.


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