The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist cultural organization during the Cold War that aimed to promote intellectual freedom and combat Soviet totalitarianism. A group of anti-communist intellectuals founded the congress in 1950 at a conference in West Berlin. At its height, the CCF was active in 35 countries and published more than 20 magazines, hosted art exhibitions, and organized conferences with prominent intellectuals. The congress aimed to enlist intellectuals and opinion makers from the non-communist left in a war of ideas against communism. In 1966 former CIA agents confirmed that the Central Intelligence Agency was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the CCF. Through this involvement, the CCF promoted western political ideology while also representing semi-autonomous intellectual movements across Europe.

Historians note the CCF's CIA funding in different contexts. Peter Coleman argues that the CCF was a participant in a struggle for the mind "of Postwar Europe" and the world at large, and was successful at combatting and undermining Soviet totalitarianism. Frances Stonor Saunders argues that the CCF functioned as a covert propaganda network "to ease the passage of American foreign policy interest abroad."

The CCF was founded on 26 June 1950 in West Berlin, which had just endured months of Soviet blockade. Formation of the CCF came in response to a series of events orchestrated by Cominform, as part of a campaign to influence public opinion against US war-mongering and aggression. In 1948, the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace convened in Wrocław (Poland) on August 1948. Then in March 1950 the World Peace Council issued the Stockholm Appeal, demanding active peace amidst the threat of nuclear war. The Cominform campaign reached New York City in March 1949 with the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The conference was attended by a plethora of prominent U.S. liberals, leftists and pacifists who called for peace with the Soviet Union. Prominent participants included Dmitri Shostakovich and Aaron Copland. In response to the conference, anti-communist opponents took up residence in the upper floor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in an attempt to discredit the peace conference. Led by ex-communist and philosophy professor Sidney Hook, the group enlisted a range of international supporters for their cause, including Benedetto Croce, T. S. Eliot, Karl Jaspers, André Malraux, Bertrand Russell and Igor Stravinsky. In a three room suite, the opposers, who called themselves Americans for Intellectual Freedom, sabotaged the conference with press releases in a media frenzy to publicize its pro-communist influence.

The Waldorf conference catalyzed a counter offense by the U.S. Office of Policy Coordination, led by Frank Wisner, who began to plan a response to the next pro-communist peace gathering scheduled for April 1949 in Paris. The subsequent counter conference of anti-communists was called International Day of Resistance to Dictatorship and War and convened on 30 April 1949. The meeting received little enthusiasm from American supporters, and was described as "too radical and neutralist".

In August 1949, several German ex-communist intellectuals along with American journalist Melvin Lasky met to discuss plans for an international conference in Berlin that would bring together ex-communists and anti-Stalinists from across Europe and America. The plan was promoted and organized by Michael Josselson and Lasky, who together proposed the plan to Washington and issued invitations. The founding conference for the Congress for Cultural Freedom was held in Berlin in June 1950 and was attended by leading intellectuals from the U.S. and Western Europe including Soviet refugees, European federalists, members of the anti-fascism movement, and union leaders. Other attendees were writers, philosophers, critics and historians: Franz Borkenau, Karl Jaspers, John Dewey, Ignazio Silone, Jacques Maritain, James Burnham, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Bertrand Russell, Ernst Reuter, Raymond Aron, A. J. Ayer, Benedetto Croce, Arthur Koestler, Richard Löwenthal, Melvin J. Lasky, Tennessee Williams, Irving Brown and Sidney Hook. There were conservatives among the participants, but non-Communist (or former Communist) left-wingers were more numerous. The Manifesto of the Congress was drafted by Arthur Koestler, with amendments added on a motion proposed by historian Hugh Trevor-Roper and philosopher A. J. Ayer.

An Executive Committee was elected in 1950 at the founding conference in Berlin, with seven members and six alternate members: Irving Brown (Haakon Lie), Arthur Koestler (Raymond Aron), Eugen Kogon (Carlo Schmid), David Rousset (Georges Altman), Ignazio Silone (Nicola Chiaromonte), Stephen Spender (Tosco Fyvel) and Denis de Rougemont who became President of the committee.

The management of the CCF was entrusted to its secretariat, headed by Michael Josselson. By the time Josselson joined the Congress of Cultural Freedom in 1950 he was "undoubtedly a CIA officer". A polyglot able to converse fluently in four languages (English, Russian, German and French), Josselson was heavily involved in the CCF's growing range of activities – its periodicals, worldwide conferences and international seminars – until his resignation in 1967, following the exposure of funding by the CIA.

At its height, the CCF had offices in 35 countries, employed dozens of personnel, and published over 20 prestigious magazines. It held art exhibitions, owned a news and features service, organized high-profile international conferences, and rewarded musicians and artists with prizes and public performances.