It’s always a bad idea for journalists to get too involved with spies

March 21, 2025 12:57 PM

The inspiration behind the scheme was a charming-sounding CIA boss called George Minden, who believed, quite rightly, that the freedom to read good literature was as important to the imprisoned minds of the Soviet empire as any other form of freedom. During most of the 1980s the CIA was run by a rather tiresome, boisterous adventurer called Bill Casey, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981. This was one of Casey’s more sensible efforts, and it was under him that Minden was able to pump books, photocopiers and even printing presses into the Soviet empire. They helped to keep people there in touch with precisely the kind of western culture the high priests of Marxism-Leninism wanted to block out. from ‘It was like fresh air’ [Grauniad]

Chapter and verse as a weapon of war [Grauniad]
The astonishing story of the ten million books that were smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War [Indie Thinking]

All are reviews of The CIA Book Club: The Gripping New History of the Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War by Charlie English

posted by chavenet (7 comments total)

a series of ancient zombies came to power and died out, and a new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev,
I assume he's referring to the latter years of Brezhnev then Andropov and Chernenko.

thing about zombies.
posted by clavdivs at 2:31 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Did they also distribute photocopier supplies? Or were users on the hook to come up with those locally?

I imagine getting caught with an unregistered copier carried some severe penalties: I wonder how many got nailed?
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 3:37 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Is there anywhere the full list of titles is available? I have a CTRL-F "Atlas Shrugged" just itching to see the light of day.
posted by CynicalKnight at 6:16 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Sounds like a fun book.

I wonder how many friends and colleagues of mine did this, back when I was a Soviet studies major in the 1980s.
posted by doctornemo at 6:45 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

"In the 1980s, CIA money helped Poland’s underground print books and magazines. It also paid for printing presses, which were smuggled in lorry refrigerators. Ink was poured into food tins. The CIA muddled its tracks and people rarely suspected who their benefactors were.

Le Carré would be proud of the tradecraft from Polish oppositionists. It included never sleeping at the same address more than two nights and wearing wigs. Police tails were evaded using subterfuge copied from Gene Hackman in The French Connection. Many underground figures were women who went undetected because of the secret police’s sexist assumptions."
posted by clavdivs at 7:18 PM on March 21 [6 favorites]

> Many underground figures were women who went undetected because of the secret police’s sexist assumptions."

In Stalin's day they would not have made that error. He was right, they regressed when he was gone.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:56 AM on March 22

I would assert that the bitter emnity between Stalin and Nadezhda Krupskaya validates that assertion. it's an interesting question cuz I do believe before during and maybe into the twenties there were a lot more female operatives that were revolutionaries and during the second World War many Soviet females distinguished themselves and intelligence work, and combat.
posted by clavdivs at 3:51 PM on March 22