When the secret links between the CIA and two dozen magazines including The Paris Review were revealed in 1966, the critics were shocked. But not all the magazines involved collapsed – some publishers and authors survived, while others fell. The former blamed the youth for their carelessness, or argued that the CIA was in fact a “non-violent and morally upright” force for good.

However, in his recent book Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers, author Joel Whitney uncovers the secrets of this once-ethical intelligence agency: how a large number of writers used literature to turn the US around in countries destabilized by coups and assassinations caused by US meddling.

The CIA developed a number of disguised intermediaries to provide funding for young writers in their infancy, with the intent of implementing its cultural propaganda strategy by establishing a series of "literary outposts" - from Lebanon to Uganda, from India to Latin America. Sometimes, the CIA established the Congress for Cultural Freedoms (CCF) to weaken democratic institutions and oppose communism. The CCF set editorial policies for each literary outpost and controlled the direction of cultural opinion in countries where anti-American rhetoric was widespread.

Peter Matthiessen, one of the founders of The Paris Review, was a CIA agent who sold the magazine's interviews to publishers in Germany, Japan, and other countries. Mundo Nuevo was intended to provide literature with a left-leaning perspective to win the trust of Latin American readers and thus eliminate extremist tendencies during the Cuban Revolution. Sometimes the CIA provided themes and funds to editors; other times, they worked directly with authors. Through these activities, the CCF weaponized the most progressive intellectuals of the era to fight against Soviet propaganda.

While the CIA’s involvement in anti-communist propaganda is old news, its widespread influence — especially early in the careers of writers popular with the left — is shocking. Whitney, co-founder and contributing editor of the literary magazine Guernica, spent four years researching and compiling a comprehensive list: James Baldwin, Gabriel García Márquez, Richard Wright, and Ernest Hemingway all served Uncle Sam to varying degrees. The CIA’s involvement wasn’t limited to the literary world; expressionists Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko also worked hand in glove with the agency.

But don’t let that ruin Love in the Time of Cholera. Whitney explains in detail how each writer served the CIA. Such careful investigations not only saved many classics from being labeled mere political tools, but also sounded a warning to those who study “post-truth” media today. In an age where Facebook algorithms rule national discourse, even the most well-meaning journalists are drawn to stories that divert public attention on behalf of the government.

“There are always ways to divert the focus away from the civil rights movement at home,” Whitney said of the CIA’s propaganda tactics during the Cold War. It’s easy to see a very similar situation today: A country’s most serious dilemmas are not usually the subject of stories that go viral in the media. The authors of The Whistleblower show us how the political machine influences the media—which stories “should” be widely known and which stories “should” be buried.