History
The magazine was founded in 1956 by Richard Krygier, a Polish-Jewish refugee who had been active in social-democrat politics in Europe and James McAuley, a Catholic poet, famous for the anti-modernist Ern Malley hoax. An initiative of the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom, the Australian arm of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a front group of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, Quadrant was part of an anti-Communist kulturkampf.
It has had many notable contributors including Les Murray, who has been its literary editor since 1990, Christopher Koch, Patrick O'Brien, Frank Knopfelmacher, A. D. Hope, Heinz Arndt, Greg Sheridan, Barry Humphries, Peter Coleman, Roger Sandall, Tom Switzer, Peter Kocan, Andrew Lansdown, Joe Dolce, Clive James, George Pell and Hal Colebatch, as well as several Labor and Liberal political figures (including John Howard, Tony Abbott, Mark Latham and John Wheeldon).
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