How the C.I.A. Played Dirty Tricks With Culture

[Doug Millison]

http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/arts/cia-propaganda.html

"The C.I.A., it seems, was worried that the public might be too influenced
by Orwell's pox-on-both-their-houses critique of the capitalist humans and
Communist pigs. So after his death in 1950, agents were dispatched (by none
other than E. Howard Hunt, later of Watergate fame) to buy the film rights
to "Animal Farm" from his widow to make its message more overtly
anti-Communist.  (snip) The agency also changed the ending of the movie
version of "1984," disregarding Orwell's specific instructions that the
story not be altered. In the book, the protagonist, Winston Smith, is
entirely defeated by the nightmarish totalitarian regime. In the very last
line, Orwell writes of Winston, "He loved Big Brother." In the movie,
Winston and his lover, Julia, are gunned down after Winston defiantly
shouts: "Down with Big Brother!"

It's an article about  a new book,_The Cultural Cold War: The C.I.A. and
the World of Arts and Letters_ (The New Press) by Frances Stonor Saunders,
a British journalist.

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