In “Malcolm X, the CIA, and Other Blacks,” a book I co-authored with former AmNews Executive Editor Don Rojas, Frances Stonor Saunders is both literally and figuratively a footnote.
Saunders, a writer who detailed CIA propaganda, died Aug. 31 in a hospice facility in England. She was 60. Her life is important within the annals of Black history, not only for ghostwriting Eartha Kitt’s book, “Confessions of a Sex Kitten,” but also for exposing the extent to which the CIA created front organizations such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which helped finance Encounter magazine.
Reading her belated obituary, I also thought of Elaine Mokhtefi, who died on Sept. 21. She, too, is a footnote in our book, and is remembered mostly for helping members of the Black Panther Party to acquire political sanctuary in Algiers in 1969.
But regarding Saunders, Don and I noted that it was during the height of the Cold War that the U.S. government created the Congress of Cultural Freedom with the aim of thwarting the influence and spread of communism. In her book, “The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters,” Saunders wrote, “At its peak, the Congress for Cultural Freedom had offices in 35 countries, employed dozens of personnel, published twenty prestige magazines, held art exhibitions, owned a news and features service, organized high-profile international conferences, and rewarded musicians, and artists and public performances.”
All of this was done, she concluded, “to assure the continuance, if not the dominance of the ‘American way.’” James Baldwin was among the notable writers duped by Encounter.
Both Saunders and Mokhtefi were extraordinary women whose dedication and insight helped Black American activists understand the international implications of culture and politics, particularly as it resonated through U.S. governmental agencies.
