In, I think I got a call in November 1978 from a rather spectacular British journalist who heard I was about to go to Moscow. “My Russian friend would sincerely like the latest volume of the “Grag Islands” of Solzenitine. I don't think you'll smuggle it for him? “Of course I disguised it quite subtly by wrapping it in the dust jacket of the most boring book I owned: Lebanon, a country in transition. Customs officials at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport temporarily threw it, but he didn't find out what it was, even if the text was in Russian. Two nights later, near the entrance to Golkey Park, I handed the book over to a shifty character who appears to be a supplier of products forbidden to the rebel community. He gave me a small 18th century icon in exchange.
A few years later I realized that I almost certainly was a rather rustic mule in the CIA scheme for smuggling destructive books through iron curtains. According to Charlie English's vibrant, beautifully studied and exciting CIA Book Club, Polish intellectual and political activist Adam Mishnik reads the gulag islands In prison; someone was able to get him a copy, courtesy of the CIA manipulation codename QRHELPFUL. Solzhenitsyn was not the only author smuggled by the CIA. George Orwell's 19 eight and animal farm were probably the most popular of the anti-establishments the book intended, but Adam Mickeywitz, Albert Camus, Nadesda Mandelstam and even Agatha Christie also appeared on the QRHelpful Book list.
The inspiration behind this plan was the fascinatingly sounding CIA boss called George Minden. He believed that freedom to read good literature was just as important to the imprisoned mind of the Soviet Empire as other forms of freedom. For most of the 1980s, the CIA was run by a rather troublesome, raucous adventurer called Bill Casey, who was appointed Ronald Reagan in 1981. This was one of Casey's wiser efforts, allowing Minden to instill the Soviet Empire with books, photokopjes and even printed reports. They helped bring people into contact with the type of Western culture that the Marxist High Priest wanted to block.
This was especially true in Poland, the main focus of English. Paul never forgot that his country was essentially part of Western Europe. The flow of French, British and American literature in particular was an important part of maintaining that awareness. Michnik, a dissident who read Solzhenitsyn in prison, speaks hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, behind the iron curtains, when he tells the British. “The book was like a fresh air. They allow us to survive and don't get mad.”
The rise of the solidarity trade union, which began at the Gdansk shipyard in 1980, proved to be the beginning of the end of the Moscow Empire in Europe. Prime Minister Jalzersky's efforts to crack down on the demand for greater freedom have only been successful for a while. The Soviet Union was bleeding white from the war in Afghanistan. Its strong political structure shows its weakness, with a series of ancient zombies dying in power, and the new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is given the impossible task of trying to bring new life to an essentially terminated system.
But his goodwill and true decency were simply not sufficient. Soon the East Germans were following the Poles' lead in demand for a better, freer life. On the night of November 9th, 1989, what was so badly thought up through the decision of the East German Politicians allowed tens of thousands of people to flood the intersection of the Berlin Wall. The Soviet Empire in Europe was dead. It wasn't killed in 84 smuggling copies of Gulag Archipelago and 19, But they definitely did their bit to help the process.
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As expected from the previous The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu in English, the CIA Book Club is a real joy to read. It becomes a very good series for television and can be a powerful reminder of the extraordinary events of Polish struggle for freedom. Suitable for such a literary nation, the book played its part, and Minden got the results he wanted.
It is always a bad idea to be journalists too involved in spying. It eats their independence. If I had realized I was acting as an agent of Minden's plans, I would probably have refused to smuggle Solzenitsin into Russia in the late 70s. But after reading Charlie English, I'm glad you did it. There is nothing more important than freedom of the mind. That's what Qrhelpful provided.
