The CIA book club The secret mission to win the Cold War with forbidden literature

English (The Gallery of Miracles and Madness, 2021) shares a story about Miroslaw Chojecki's heroic efforts in the early 1980s to break the USSR's stranglehold on his beloved Poland through the large-scale distribution of writings by the likes of George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Philip Roth, John le Carré, and later, by pro-democracy writers from Poland, the USSR, and the rest of the Eastern bloc. "Do you think your little words will make a difference?" asked his father, a former WWII Resistance fighter. "Would you prefer me to shoot someone?" Miroslaw replied. Remarkably, the CIA would play a huge part in financing that distribution, applying soft power with deftness and moral authority even as the agency reeled from recent public revelations that it had assassinated, or attempted to assassinate, a range of foreign leaders, among other misdeeds. English lays out the complexity of this massive distribution network--from CIA funding to acquiring writings, sourcing printers and supplies, and assembling staff to carry out the mission--all undertaken in great secrecy and at huge personal risk. Many other factors were at work in pulling down the Iron Curtain, as English makes clear here, but also clear is the CIA's unrecognized success in advocating for democracy and the rule of law against overwhelming odds.

Journalist English (The Gallery of Miracles and Madness) offers a riveting look at a little-known CIA operation designed to spread alternative media throughout Soviet-controlled Poland. Communist censors banned or edited materials that depicted life beyond the Iron Curtain, unsavory parts of U.S.S.R. history, or Polish national identity; they also heavily regulated news media and restricted access to printing materials. Drawing on firsthand accounts, English shows how a network of anti-Communist activists--among them Mirosław Chojecki (who gained international recognition for going on a hunger strike while imprisoned for his publishing activities), Kultura magazine publisher Jerzy Giedroyć, and Helena Łuczywo, editor of the underground publication Mazovia Weekly--worked with the CIA to evade the censors and amplify the Polish Solidarity movement. The network created illicit broadcasts, magazines, and cassettes; smuggled books, printing materials, and radio equipment into the country; and helped fund anti-establishment efforts (including violent ones). Intrigue follows as conspirators engage in evasive maneuvers, coded messages, double-crossings, and other flimflammery. Yet, despite this spycraft-centric focus, the author steers admirably clear of divisive Cold War ideological messaging, instead maintaining a captivating focus on the sacrifices made by the activists. (At one point, English chronicles a Mazovia Weekly deputy editor's heroic, single-handed production of an entire newspaper at a crucial moment when her colleagues were all away.) The result is a thrilling account of ordinary people fighting for their intellectual freedom. (June)

Vivid history of a CIA-funded program to introduce subversive literature to Eastern Europe during the Soviet bloc era. British author English's book opens with an image of a simple-looking book, computer scientists on the cover, seemingly a technical manual. Had Polish security agents opened it, however, they would have discovered a copy of George Orwell's1984, smuggled into the country from Paris. The French capital served as an entrepôt for books funded by the CIA, which, brought to Warsaw and other Polish cities by travelers to the West during the brief thaw following Stalin's death, were circulated via a "system of covert lending." As English writes, the CIA agents providing funds and books were discerning: They sent fashion magazines and books by the likes of John le Carré and Philip Roth but also by East European and Russian writers such as Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky, and Czeslaw Milosz. Eventually the book smugglers became more daring, publishing samizdat editions through a carefully coordinated series of safe rooms scattered across the country. English celebrates homegrown heroes such as Miroslaw Chojecki, trained as a physicist, who had been arrested 43 times by March 1980 but kept it up all the same. Romanian-born George Minden, also honored, concocted a series of ploys to get books and money inside the Iron Curtain, including, daringly, simply mailing banned literature to recipients chosen at random from the phone book. The program was highly effective; as English notes, "By 1962 at least 500 organizations were sending books on the CIA's behalf." By the program's end, thousands of books had been circulated, to the gratitude of their readers, one of whom exalted, "We read poetry and literature. It showed us that there are likeminded people who are above nationality, who we can empathize with, who admire beauty, who admire virtue." A well-crafted book about books--and spooks, skullduggery, and a time when ideas mattered. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.