The CIA connection is not a conspiracy theory in the usual sense of the term; it is well-documented, including by the CIA.
Was at least her feminism, or a strain aligned with it, a CIA project to destabilize traditional societies? It's not a ridiculous idea. We know that USAID -- often said to be a CIA funding/action arm -- supported similar transgender movements globally. The aim seems to have been to build out and identify networks of people with deep, existential grievances against their own society and its mores -- an ideal recruiting base for agents who would act against their own governments. The CIA also funded modern art as a psychological warfare approach against traditional societies.
In a way, such efforts were at once revolutionary and counter-revolutionary. The disruption being wrought by left-leaning movements to traditional societies is inherent in Marxism, which aspires to revolutions against agricultural/feudal societies towards capitalist/industrial ones and, then, against capitalist ones towards communist/socialist ones. Marxism always advocated for the equality of women as a liberation from traditional roles, even though women who joined Marxist and Maoist movements rarely found themselves in positions of power once the revolutions carried the day. Trying to find a way to suborn and redirect this feminist thrust to support the position of America and its allies was an insight that made a lot of sense to the American elites who ran both State and the Agency.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum. I merely note the controversy; may she rest in peace.
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Wiki: Independent Research Service
The Independent Research Service was a non profit[1] front organization financed by the Central Intelligence Agency[2][3] during the Cold War. Harvard University students were recruited to infiltrate[4] the USSR-controlled World Youth Festivals held in Vienna, Austria and Helsinki, Finland. Second-wave feminism leader Gloria Steinem revealed in a 1967 interview that she was its director from 1958 to 1962—the extent of its existence[1]— in full knowledge of who was backing the surveillance operation.[5][6][7]
Assuming that those recruited from Harvard were more aligned with the American ethos than Harvard students are today, that sounds to me like a good thing. A CIA front designed to infiltrate a Soviet front, the World Youth Festival. I don't object.
Carlos Fonseca, one of the three co-founders of Nicaragua's FSLN (Sandinista Liberation Front) attended the World Youth Festival in Moscow in 1957---IIRC all expenses paid by Moscow. He wrote of his experiences there in the short book Un Nicaraguense en Moscu, which is easily downloaded in a Spanish language PDF. He wrote that there was freedom of religion in the Soviet Union. Fonseca told of running into a
"Hungarian" at the festival, who gave him the lowdown on the recently failed Hungarian Revolution. Said the "Hungarian" (my translation) "We appreciate the assistance the Soviets gave us to prevent criminal fascists from taking power." Fonseca sums up: "I had read in our (central) american magazines a very different and very false description of the events in Hungary."
Accidentally running into him? I doubt it. The "Hungarian" most likely knew who Fonseca was, and was assigned to give him--and probably many others--- the spiel. An influencer.
I knew three Argentines of Hungarian refugee origin. Two were my workmates. An Argentine/Hungarian refugee, an aerospace engineer, told me that after WW2, the Soviets tried to get him to relocate to the USSR to work for them. When he refused, the Soviets imprisoned him for 18 months. He was fortunate enough to get released before Commies had taken power.
11 Things to Know About the CIA Book Program
11 Things to Know About the CIA Book Program.
At the same time, the CIA did some dirty on the uncle of childhood friends.
Gringo
"A CIA front designed to infiltrate a Soviet front, the World Youth Festival. I don't object."
The British MP I was just mentioning told the story of meeting with a PRC Chinese ambassador, who regaled him and his wife with extremely detailed stories about the wife's mother, whom she knew, where she lived, and exactly at which hours she preferred which music.
It's not like we weren't, and aren't, playing against thugs.
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