Throughout my tenure as a Professor of Economic Geography and Geopolitical Theory, I continually emphasized the importance of Culture as a Geopolitical Pillar of Power among the four Geopolitical Pillars of Power that I had included in my Theory of Systemic Geopolitical Analysis.
When I came across the work of F.S. SAUNDERS, (The Cultural Cold War. The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, The New Press, NY, 2000), I realized that in this very serious research, I found all the evidence supporting my Theory, particularly regarding a very sensitive and difficult-to-understand pillar of geopolitical power that my students were astonished to hear me teach, identifying it as such. They could not imagine how 'innocent Art' could, through its manipulation and propagandistic enforcement, be transformed into a powerful weapon of sociopolitical, ideological, and economic manipulation of national social formations!
This text, apart from a few cursory references to the writings of Greek academics, scientists, writers, art critics, and commentators, has never been known in its entirety, which is shocking for the Arts and Letters. I would not like to mention an incomplete list of these - nonetheless significant - contributions in this edition.
I aimed to enrich this excellent work of F.S. Saunders with texts that were not available to the Author during the writing of this current piece. And I believe that, to some extent, I succeeded in this, by gathering, translating, commenting (with explanatory comments valuable to the reader), and including in the Appendix of Documentation Texts a significant series of original documents that further illuminate the reader about the theoretical and ideological basis of the CIA's project led by Allen Dulles from 1947 to 1968.
As can be understood, with this book, I do not intend to promote my academic advancement, which has satisfactorily concluded about three years ago. Nor am I interested in enriching my already tedious biography. I simply wish to inform every well-meaning and cultivated Greek citizen who is interested in the Geopolitics of Art and Culture about the background of the manipulations of societies and Thought in the name of 'Freedom' and 'anti-communism'.
