LETTER: The CIA made a killing on modern art

I FIND it strange that your article, "Modern art was CIA 'weapon' " (22 October), did not suggest that the "Cold War" justification for the CIA's support for American "abstract expressionist" art could easily have served as a convenient cover for the aim of increasing the financial value of the paintings.

After all, members of that wealthy class of Americans whose influence in the US government was most manifested in the CIA, not to mention CIA personnel themselves, were investors. Are we to believe that such an increase in value was merely a fortuitous and unintended side-effect of an altruistic effort to promote "the American way"?

R Maltz

London N8