The Greatest Movie Never Made: The Life of the Buddha as Cold War Politics
This article explores the backstory of a 1953 screenplay on the life of the Buddha conceived by the CIA as a psychological warfare strategy to draw Asian Buddhists away from the Communist orbit and into the Free World. Developed in collaboration with Ceylonese Buddhist scholar G. P. Malalasekera, Ta...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
[2020]
|
| In: |
Religion and American culture
Year: 2020, Volume: 30, Issue: 3, Pages: 397-425 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
USA
/ Asians
/ Buddha 563 BC-483 BC
/ Biography
/ Film
/ East-West conflict
|
| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy BL Buddhism KBQ North America ZC Politics in general |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article explores the backstory of a 1953 screenplay on the life of the Buddha conceived by the CIA as a psychological warfare strategy to draw Asian Buddhists away from the Communist orbit and into the Free World. Developed in collaboration with Ceylonese Buddhist scholar G. P. Malalasekera, Tathagata: The Wayfarer (hereafter, Wayfarer) is best read through the lens of the U.S. Campaign of Truth propaganda effort launched by Truman in 1950. I draw on declassified government documents and archives to highlight the screenplay's trajectory as a covert attempt by the U.S. government to work with Asian Buddhists to further U.S. foreign policy needs in Asia and to demonstrate a truth rarely recognized by scholars of religion and American culture: For the early Cold War American state, Buddhism was an object of foreign policy. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1533-8568 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion and American culture
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/rac.2020.14 |