Lasky, Melvin Jonah

▪ 2005

      American editor (b. Jan. 15, 1920, New York, N.Y.—d. May 19, 2004, Berlin, Ger.), gained a reputation as an ardent soldier in the cultural Cold War while editor of the magazine Encounter from 1958 to 1990. The liberal and devoutly anticommunist magazine initially flourished under Lasky's editorship, attracting leading thinkers and writers, such as Bertrand Russell, Arthur Koestler, and Vladimir Nabokov, but its prestige plummeted after 1967 when it was revealed that the magazine received financial support from the CIA.

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