Not All Propaganda is Art 1: Operation Younger Brother

Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything

Benjamen Walker & Radiotopia

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2024

⏱️ 71 minutes

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Summary

In the 1950s the CIA weaponized culture to capture hearts and minds in Europe and Africa. We meet three writers (Richard Wright, Kenneth Tynan, and Dwight Macdonald) who got caught up in this battle both as collaborators and targets between the years of 1956 - 1960. We also meet a propagandist responsible for the CIA’s cinematic version of 1984 (Operation Big Brother) and “books that don’t smack of propaganda” aimed at European Intellectuals - including James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son.

Shownotes: Françoise Vergès is the author of A decolonial Feminism, James Campbell is the author of Paris Interzone and Talking at the Gates, Jelena Ćulibrk writes on IRD and Newsreels, Tony Shaw writes on British Cinema and the Cold War,

Support ToE and get access to the incredible exclusive bonus companion series to Not All Propaganda is Art by subscribing at https://theoryofeverything.supercast.com/, or subscribe directly in Apple Podcasts by hitting “Subscribe” right on the show page.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything.
0:05.0	At Radiotopia, we now have a select group of amazing supporters that help us make all our shows possible. If you would like to have your company or
0:14.8	product sponsor this podcast then get in touch drop a line to sponsor at radiotopia.
0:21.6	fm. Thanks.
0:27.0	Hey dear listener, it's me Benjamin Walker, your host, and we are together here at the top of the very first episode of a new
0:35.8	limited series that will run on the Theory of Everything feed for the next eight
0:40.1	weeks. The series is called Not All Propaganda is Art, and it's a story about three
0:47.0	writers who got caught up in the Cultural Cold War in the late 1950s. I've spent the past four years researching and reporting this story,
0:57.0	and it's unlike anything I've ever made before.
1:00.0	In fact, I think it might be the first podcast group biography ever made.
1:07.5	But before I introduce you to our incredible main cast, I've got a proper introduction for you. A 12 minute story that will explain everything
1:16.4	you need to know about the Cultural Cold War and the world of 1956, a world that has a lot in common with the one we live in today.
1:27.0	Okay then, down we go.
1:40.0	All art is propaganda, George Orwell famously wrote. But this is only half of the quotation. The full thing goes like this. All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.
1:50.0	And that latter half is perhaps best expressed by the 1956 film version of George Orwell's novel 1984, a movie secretly made by the CIA.
2:04.0	Writer George Orwell had a dream or a nightmare of what the world might be like in 1984
2:10.0	and put his ideas into a book.
2:12.0	The book became a film and at the film's
2:14.0	London premiere that vision of the future seems to us spread into the theatre foyer.
2:18.0	On March 1st, 1956, actors dressed as thought police
2:22.0	heard in men and tuxedos and ladies and evening dresses
2:25.1	into the Warner Theater.
	...

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