This article, based on archival materials from the Asia Foundation, examines the Central Intelligence Agency's secret funding of Union Press ( UP) cultural activities and the founding of The Student Weekly in Singapore and Malaysia during the Cold War. It analyzes agreements, correspondence, reports, and contents of The Student Weekly in comparison with UP leaders' memoirs to assess the veracity of the latter. The claims made by UP leaders that UP was "absolutely independent and free" and that the U.S. never interfered with UP's operation are debunked. The article describes the huge U. S. funding for UP and the U.S. monitoring of UP, and discovers many discrepancies between the UP leaders' memoirs and archival records. The U. S. not only hired experts to review UP's finances, publications, and work performances for multiple times, but also sent representatives to openly and covertly conduct investigations of UP's organizations and operations, reporting back to the U. S. headquarters. With this intel, the U.S. headquarters then intervened in UP's operations. Moreover, UP reported to the U.S. about how their activities and publications were deployed for ideological training in propagating the evils of Communism and became part of the cultural Cold War to instill knowledge and democratic principles in youths in the interests of the Free World.
