 In his support for the idea of cultural freedom, Hook was a founder of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom. This Committee organized a number of symposia on issues related to cultural freedom among a wide intellectual community, including such figures as W.H. Auden and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Much more significant in political terms was the extension of this kind of activity to international forums, particularly in Western Europe. Among Western European intellectuals in the early 1950s, the issue of their choice among the options of European neutralism, ideological support for the Soviet Union or support for the United States was at the center of political debate. The Congress of Cultural Freedom conference that Hook helped organize in Paris at that time represented a rallying base for criticism of the Soviet Union and for support of a philosophy of liberal democracy that was compatible with the American foreign policy interest. One of the more remarkable results of the activities of the Congress of Cultural Freedom was the founding of a number of cultural journals modeled on Partisan Review. These journals included Encounter in England, Les Preuves in France and Der Monat in Germany, as well as similar periodicals in India and Australia. The high cultural standards adopted by these journals led to their becoming vanguard publications in their own national cultures, so that their advocacy of the anti-communist message was transcended by their literary achievement. The continued exposure of the abuses of human rights and democratic values in the Soviet Union and its satellites remained a constant theme even as they were in the forefront of literary and artistic culture and provided independent and open forums for the discussion of major questions of economic development and social policy.