Melvin J. Lasky

In October 2010, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich opened the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies, a research center associated with the university's American Studies department. The Lasky Center is home to Lasky's personal library and papers. Its director is Christof Mauch.

Lasky died in May 2004 of a heart ailment. A portion of Lasky's unpublished memoirs appears in News from the Republic of Letters, as well as in The Berlin Journal, Spring, 2007.

Der Monat was sold to Die Zeit and temporarily ceased publication in 1971. From 1978 until 1987, Der Monat (now titled Der Monat (Neue Folge) or simply Der Monat (N. F.)) re-surfaced as a Die Zeit quarterly without Lasky's involvement as editor-in-chief, but Lasky remained publisher along with his German wife Helga Hegewisch, while the journal's new editor-in-chief was SPD politician and later German Minister of Culture Michael Naumann. A new economy and marketing publication called Der Monat appearing in Germany since 1997 has nothing to do with the former journal's socio-political concept and design.

Both Encounter and Der Monat had long received funding from the CIA-sponsored Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). Lasky denied knowledge of CIA funding in a 1966 letter (written jointly with Irving Kristol and Stephen Spender) to The New York Times. However, Lasky confessed privately to Frank Kermode (recruited as editor in 1965) that he had known about CIA funding for some years. In 1967, Ramparts and other publications revealed the CIA's relationship to the CCF and its publications, embarrassing many who were involved.

In the English-speaking world, Lasky was best known for his role as Editor-in-Chief of Encounter. He succeeded Irving Kristol, the original editor and founder, in 1958 and helped turn the young magazine into one of the most highly regarded periodicals in Europe. Lasky steered Encounter to represent the point of view of the anti-Communist, anti-Totalitarian Left, and reportedly favored the journal's political side over its more purely cultural endeavors. He remained at Encounter until the magazine folded in 1991.

From 1950 to 1963, the CIA covertly supported the CCF and a number of its publications, including Encounter. While Lasky did admit he knew of the CIA's role as a funding source prior to its reveal in 1966, rumors that he was a CIA agent have not been substantiated by evidence. In 1947, Lasky wrote an influential document that made the case for a cultural Cold War intended to win over European intellectuals.

Lasky helped to found the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) at a 1950 conference he organized in West Berlin. Frank Wisner, of the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination, criticized Lasky for making American sponsorship of the conference too obvious. Although temporarily expelled from the CCF by Wisner, Lasky was included again in 1953 as a member of the "Tri-Magazine Editorial Committee", which established policies and topics for Der Monat, Preuves, and Encounter. As part of this committee, Lasky argued that these magazines must express some dissent against the American government or risk being exposed as propaganda. Furthermore, Lasky contributed to sustaining West Berlin's role as a symbol of transatlantic solidarity.

Soon after, Lasky received Marshall Plan funding to create the German-language journal Der Monat ("The Month"), airlifted into Berlin during the 1948 Soviet blockade. Its purpose was to support U.S. foreign policy and win over German intellectuals views that were socially progressive but anti-communist. Der Monat continued as a prominent highbrow Germanophone journal, incorporating essays and articles from many Western European and North America intellectuals as well as dissidents from the Eastern Bloc. Contributors included Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Franz Borkenau, Thomas Mann, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Ignazio Silone, Heinrich Böll, Hans Sahl, Max Frisch, T. S. Eliot, Saul Bellow, Milovan Djilas, Richard Löwenthal, Peter de Mendelssohn, Hilde Spiel, and Hermann Kesten. The journal also received funding from the Ford Foundation and the CIA.

After Lasky left the Army, he became a German correspondent for the New Leader and for the Partisan Review. In 1947, Lasky sent a message to General Lucius D. Clay which became known as "The Melvin Lasky Proposal". In this document, Lasky argued for a more aggressive campaign of cultural and psychological operations to combat the Soviet Union in the Cold War. It reads:

Lasky was born in The Bronx of New York City and schooled at City College of New York, where he wrote for the student newspaper, The Campus. He continued his education at University of Michigan and Columbia University. He briefly considered himself a Trotskyist but at 22 moved away from communism entirely because of disgust with Stalin. He began working for the New Leader in New York and was editor from 1942 to 1943. Lasky wrote an editorial during this time criticizing the Allies for failing to address The Holocaust directly in their World War II efforts.

Melvin Jonah Lasky (15 January 1920 – 19 May 2004) was an American journalist, intellectual, and member of the anti-Communist left. He founded the German journal Der Monat in 1948 and, from 1958 to 1991, edited Encounter, one of many journals revealed to have been secretly funded by the CIA through the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF).