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| George C. Minden |
In the history of the Cold War, there are many activities that have not yet
been made public, for whatever reasons, by intelligence agencies from either
side of the Iron Curtain. Near the top of the list of those activities
remaining secret are the extraordinary book distribution-mailing programs of
the Free Europe Committee (FEC) and Radio Liberty Committee (RLC). These
programs lasted over 34 years and were covertly financed by the CIA. These were
not glamorous "James Bond" activities but prime examples of how
"soft diplomacy" helped win the Cold War -- sometimes referred to as
the "Cultural Cold War." These book distribution programs first
began in July 1956 and lasted until 1991.
Three men were directly responsible for creating and managing these
programs: Samuel (Sam) Sloan Walker and George Caputineanu Minden for the FEC
program and Isaac (Ike) Patch for the RLC program.
Below, we will look at the FEC program with Sam Walker and George C.
Minden; part two will examine the RLC program.
The significance of the book-distribution programs is, perhaps, best
illustrated by these extracts from a 1976 U.S. Senate Subcommittee
("Church Committee") report:
In 1961 the Chief of the CIA’s Covert
Action Staff, who had responsibility for the covert propaganda program, wrote:
Books differ from all other
propaganda media, primarily because one single book can significantly change
the reader's attitude and action to an extent unmatched by the impact of any
other single medium … this is, of course, not true of all books at all times
and with all readers—but it is true significantly often enough to make books
the most important weapon of strategic (long-range) propaganda.
In 1961 the Chief of the CIA’s Covert
Action Staff, who had responsibility for the covert propaganda program, wrote:
o
According to The Chief of the Covert Action Staff, the
CIA's clandestine handling of book publishing and distribution could:
o
Get
books published or distributed abroad without revealing any U.S. influence, by
covertly subsidizing foreign publications or booksellers.
o
Get
books published which should not be "contaminated'' by any overt tie-in
with the U.S. government, especially if the position of the author is
"delicate.'"
o
Get
books published for operational reasons, regardless of commercial viability.
o
Initiate
and subsidize indigenous national or international organizations for book
publishing or distributing purposes.
o
Stimulate
the writing of politically significant books by unknown foreign authors—either
by directly subsidizing the author, if covert contact is feasible, or
indirectly, through literary agents or publishers. (pp. 192-193)
The Covert Use of Books and Publishing Houses
The Committee has found that the
Central Intelligence Agency attaches a particular importance to book publishing
activities as a form of covert propaganda. A former officer in the Clandestine
Service stated that books are "the most important weapon of strategic
(long-range) propaganda." (p. 453)
At the recent conference in Munich celebrating the first Radio
Free Europe program broadcast in Munich on May 1, 1951, Dr. Alfred Reisch
presented a summary of the results of his years of personal involvement with
and research into the FEC book distribution program. In short, over 10 million
books and periodicals were distributed to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary,
Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
According to Dr. Reisch, "The main objective ... was to break through
the ideological and cultural barriers erected by the Communist regimes of
Eastern Europe and provide the people of the region with access to Western
ideas, values and culture."
How was this accomplished? Reisch explained that, "A vast network of
350 American and West European book publishers participated in the book program
and many bogus organizations were set up for that purpose." Books
that were mailed included George Orwell's 1984, Albert Camus's The
Rebel and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
Reisch worked on the FEC book-distribution/mailing program in New York
City. His full account of the book-distribution program, for the first time,
will be published in his forthcoming book with the working title: Hot
Books in the Cold War. The CIA's Secret Book Distribution Program Behind the
Iron Curtain.
Beginning in 1951, Samuel (Sam) S. Walker managed the balloon-leaflet
programs of the Free Europe Press (FEP) in coordination with Radio Free
Europe's radio broadcasts -- two divisions of the Free Europe Committee.
In the Spring 1956, Sam Walker and the FEC came up with the idea of
distributing books and other printed materials to Eastern Europe through a
direct mailing program.
The concept was proposed to the CIA, which agreed to finance the program
and continued to do so until 1991. The first mailings to Eastern Europe from
Munich and New York included articles, some of which had been translated or
copies of originals in English, French, or German. The next month, mailings
were sent from Athens, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London, New York, Paris,
Rome, Vienna and West Berlin.
The Free Europe Press unit in Munich suggested items for the mailings,
set up the mailers around Western Europe, and recruited persons who dealt with
the book publishers. To give some semblence of propriety, those who received
the mailing found a publisher’s catalogue and letter offering one or two
books of the recipient’s choice to be free of charge. A few letters were
returned with the requested book information.The breadth of the operation would
change years later as we will read below.
After the Hungarian Revolution, the Free Europe Press was reorganized.
Mailings to Hungary stopped from October 1956 to July 1959, but mailings to
other East European countries continued unabated.
In 1957, Sam Walker listed four policy objectives of the
book-distribution program:
- national integrity,
- self-expression,
- intellectual curiosity, and
- decentralization of authority.
By February 1957, book mailing centers were in 14 countries in Europe
and North America. For the duration of the book distribution program, London, Paris,
New York, Vienna and Rome were the most often used mailing points.
Sam Walker left the FEC in the summer 1959 and began his own book
publishing company, which later published the first three Cold War novels of
John Le Carre in the U.S., including The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
Mailings from the FEP office in Munich ceased and the New York Book Center took
over full responsibility for the mailings and direct person-to person
distribution to East European visitors to the West. George C. Minden, head
of the Romanian section of the FEP took over control of the FEC program.
Minden's operation was on the 26th Floor, deliberately separated from the
Radio Free Europe offices that were on the 25th floor of the building at 2 Park
Avenue South.
George Caputineanu Minden was born on February 19, 1920, in Bucharest. His
family was considered wealthy. Minden graduated at the top of his class in
Bucharest law school. After World War Two, with the coming of Communism to
Romania, he fled to England. His property and wealth were confiscated.
Minden taught at Cambridge University and then moved to Spain and Mexico as a
language teacher, before joining FEP.
The book-distribution program became the Publications and Special
Projects Division (PSPD) of the FEC. Minden later wrote that 1968 was its
"best year," when almost 330,000 books and periodicals were
distributed to 70,000 persons and institutions behind the Iron Curtain.
According to a government report on U.S. government monies provided to RFE
and RL, the 1971 fiscal-year budget for the PSPD was almost $611,000, when
it was discontinued as a unit of FEC. The report went on, "The book
program ... was reassigned outside the Free Europe organization on December 31,
1970."
After the FEC stopped non-radio activities, Minden's operation moved
to the 14th floor of 475 Park Avenue, South. The book-distribution program was
re-named International Advisory Council (IAC) with George Minden as
its president. In 1975 the IAC was renamed the International Literary Center (ILC),
with the merger of the Radio Liberty Committee book-distribution program to the
USSR. The CIA continued to finance it. By the time the program stopped in
1991, about 300,000 books and magazines were being distributed yearly. 83,000
acknowledgement of receipt of the books were received -- almost 40 percent of
the books mailed.
George C. Minden died on April 9, 2006; he was 86 years old. He never went
public about his role as director of the CIA's financed book-distribution/mailing
program.
As Alfred Reisch concludes,
On the basis of this well documented
written evidence, it can be said with certainty that this massive
quasi-secret book distribution program had a significant impact and
influence on intellectuals and professional people and thousands of
students and youths in East Europe during some four decades of Soviet
communist domination ... Western political ideas and Western culture,
languages and dictionaries, art and architecture, sociology, religion and
philosophy, economics and farming, history and memoirs, and catalogues were
able to penetrate the cultural Iron Curtain despite attempts by communist
censors and customs to stem the flow. Ultimately, they were forced to admit
defeat just like those who tried to jam the radio broadcasts of RFE and other
Western radio stations. The intellectuals of East Europe were able to break out
of their cultural and ideological prison and remain in touch with their
counterparts in the West. In this particular type of psychological warfare, the
ultimate victory belonged to the Free World with the fall of the Iron Curtain
and the end of the Cold War.
Sam Walker died in a boating accident in May 1992; he was 65 years old. In
the next posting, we will examine the role of Isaac (Ike) Patch and the Radio
Liberty Committee in the book-distribution program for the USSR in the Cold
War.
For more information.
John P.C. Matthews, “The West’s Secret Marshall for the Mind,” International
Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol.16, No.3, 2003.
(Matthews had worked in Munich for the FEC book distribution program).
Alfred Reisch, "Ideological Warfare During the Cold War, Military
Power Revue der Schweizer Armee, Nr. 3, 2008.
The Samuel S. Walker papers related to the Free Europe Committee 1950-1959
are archived at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford,
California.
This archive includes correspondence, memoranda, reports and printed
matter.
There is a limited collection of George Caputineanu Minden's papers,
including letters and financial records, from 1967 to 1990 at the Hoover
Institution Archives. For other years and more detailed reports of George C.
Minden, the CIA maintains the files.
