Western and Emigre Periodicals and Books Published with Covert Support

Since 1957, FEC regularly sent the Polish emigre periodical Kultura and the Czechoslovak emigre magazine Svedestvi to Poland and Czechoslovakia, respectively. Throughout the 1960s, Free Europe’s West European Operations Division (WEOD), later renamed Press and Special Projects Division (PSPD), financially supported a large number of East European emigre political and literary journals and magazines, whose very existence often depended on this kind of support. This was done through the purchase of a large quantity of copies for mailing to Eastern Europe or direct distribution to East European visitors to the West. In 1966, Free Europe supported, in whole or in part, 23 publications at a total cost of $338,000 annually. In addition to a number of publications for Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Baltic countries not managed by Minden’s PSDP, the list included FE’s own monthly magazine, East Europe, launched in the mid-1950s (with a circulation of 8,500 copies), its German and French editions Osteuropdische Rundschau and Temoignages (11,500 and 7,500 copies, respectively), and the bi-weeklies News from Czechoslovakia, News from Hungary, and News from Poland. The list also included two Polish and four Hungarian emigre periodicals.139

The anti-communist monthly Kultura (Culture), published by Jerzy Giedroyc in Paris, had since the late-1950s been distributed by both Walker and Minden, and many channels were used to get it past the censors into Poland. PsPD received many concrete indications that Kultura was widely read and disseminated inside Poland. Copies were mailed to Poles in Havana and given to Polish sailors passing through Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Leghorn, Italy, to read during their long days at sea. Two Polish travel agencies in london also gave it to passengers going to Poland. RUCH, the major Polish distribution agency for foreign publications, requested 18 subscriptions. A Polish bookstore owner in london began mailing Kultura to 24 customers by inserting it into parcels with their regular orders.140 A recent Polish emigrant to the U. s. wrote that he had succeeded in getting the magazine in Poland and wished to subscribe to it. the Polish government was also interested in it, as shown by a letter from the Polish Embassy in Denmark answering a request for a subscription payment. They sent the money and asked for back issues. A year later, the Polish Consulate in Paris also ordered a subscription. the University library of Warsaw wrote that it had received three issues of Kultura from the National library, an indication that the main Polish libraries cooperated with each other in distributing dangerous political litera-ture.141 over the years, Kultura continued to be in great demand, and its impact in Poland remained considerable. It was circulated among groups and considered the best periodical in the Polish language. It was possible to read its current and back issues after getting the necessary permission for access to the so-called restricted material in university libraries. A Polish visitor to Vienna reported that many readers in Poland were allowed to borrow Kultura from scientific libraries, but could take copies only for one night and had to return them by the

Time the library reopened the next day. By the end of 1968, however, the monthly became increasingly difficult to get.142

The American Polish-language quarterly Tematy, the high level cultural quarterly of Perspectives in Culture, Inc. in New York, was edited by Paul Mayewski, who was able to visit Poland in 1965. it was entirely subsidized by PsPD and published in London without any attribution to Free Europe, inc. A11 material was reprinted from american and english literary and cultural publications, including many university publications. the majority of its 2,000 copies, 300 of them purchased and mailed by PsPD, were distributed in Poland, with one hundred copies distributed by RUCH, the official Polish distributing agency, and one hundred by the U. s. embassy in Warsaw, the quarterly was well known among Polish intellectuals, who had a high regard for it, and many of the translations were done in Poland. Direct confirmations or requests by mail were rarely received, but in 1964 the Library of the University of Poznan confirmed for the first time the receipt of Tematy and asked for back issues which had been mailed but had not arrived. The University Library of Warsaw asked for nine back issues “to fill the gaps in the sets of this paper,” and the National Library in Warsaw, after receiving Tematy, wrote that it was eager to have the journal in its collection of publications that were not allowed to be sold or circulated. Polish visitors in Paris reported that the review could occasionally be bought at a kiosk in Warsaw.143

Another Polish-language, anti-communist weekly published in London, with a circulation of 3,300 copies, was Wiadomosci. Edited by Mieczislaw Grydzewski (1894-1970), it continued the tradition of the prewar Polish journal. Though primarily literary, it also discussed political topics. Many of its contributors were Polish-American professors and Polish writers who had escaped to the West. To get past the censors, 100 copies of each issue were sent by first class mail in the form of clippings to some 500 individuals in Poland together with its Monthly supplement Na Antenie (3,800 copies), which contained the texts of selected RFE broadcasts. Furthermore, 100 to 150 copies of the weekly were distributed each month to Poles visiting the West. The clippings reached Poland in quantity, as confirmed by the visiting literary critic Artur sandauer, a number of writers, and staff members of the National Library in Warsaw, the Library of the Polish academy of sciences thanked the weekly and included a list of issues, some going back several years, which were not in the library’s possession. A number of biographies published in Poland also cited Wiadomosci. In addition, PSPD mailed the journal Zeszyty Historyczne (Historical notes), published by the Institute Literacki, to Poland and Lithuania. Another Polish literary magazine published in London, Oficyna Poetow (Poets’ workshop), was also well received and praised in Poland.144

Hungarian publications included Uj Ldtohatdr (New horizon), a political and cultural bi-monthly launched in Munich after the 1956 Revolution. It was published in 1,800 copies by J6zsef Molnar and edited by Gyula Borbandi. PSPD bought 500 copies of each issue, 200 for direct mailing to Hungary and 300 for its person-to-person program, while Molnar mailed 700 copies to Hungary at his own expense. The Hungarian government also ordered 18 copies of each issue and the magazine was sold in Novi sad and subotica through Molnar’s connections with the Yugoslav publishing house Forum. Between July 1, 1968 and June 30, 1969, a total of 220 books and 400 magazines were sent to Yugoslavia for distribution. Molnar also had a Hungarian distributor in Bern, Peter Gosztonyi, head of the Hungarian Library, and one in Stockholm in the person of Geza Thinsz. His Munich editorial office also served as a book distribution center, where Hungarian visitors from Hungary, Slovakia, and Transylvania were given free books and periodicals, many of them in

The Hungarian language. Visiting writers suggested that the magazine should devote more attention to the problems of ethnic Hungarians in Romania and Czechoslovakia. The magazine was well known and highly praised in Hungary, and had many contacts with Hungarians. It received a great deal of mail and was occasionally mentioned in the domestic press and radio. it was also cited in various books and literary publications in Hungary, in slovakia by the periodical Uj Szo published in Bratislava, and in Yugoslavia. in the first half of 1968, Irodalmi Szemle, a Hungarian literary magazine published in Bratislava, proposed a collaboration with Uj Ldtohatdr by publishing the works of Hungarian emigre writers and Hungarian writers in Slovakia in their respective magazines.145

Merleg (Balance), a Hungarian intellectual quarterly published in 4,400 copies in Vienna by the Hungarian Pax Romana in Munich and edited by Janos Boor, contained both original material and material taken from Roman Catholic periodicals published in Western Europe and the United States. PSPD bought 750 copies of each issue—500 for direct mailing to Hungary and 250 for person-to-person distribution. In addition, Merleg itself also mailed copies to the ethnic Hungarian population in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. It was often mentioned and quoted in the Hungarian Catholic press, with excerpts reprinted in Catholic periodicals (Uj Ember, Teologia), and received close to 500 letters during the first half of 1969 alone. In June 1969, the authorities authorized the sale of the quarterly in Hungary but at a very high subscription rate.146

PSPD also supported Magyar Hirado (Hungarian messenger), a monthly newspaper edited by Gyula Klamar with a highly political emphasis and an outspokenly pro-American line. It was launched as an information bulletin in Vienna with Austrian support by Hungarian

Exiles after the Revolution of October 1956. When that support ended in 1961, the paper was rescued first by FEC’s WEoD, then taken over by PSPD. By 1965, it had a run of 7,000 copies. PSPD bought 700 copies of each issue (300 for mailing and 400 for person-to-person distribution). The newspaper itself mailed 300 more copies a month to libraries and official organizations in Hungary, and 150 to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. It was given away to Hungarian travellers on trains and train stations, buses, Danube steamers and Vienna hotels, and over 1,000 copies a month were distributed by Austrian tourists going to Hungary. The newspaper received hundreds of commendatory letters and a great many Hungarian visitors to Vienna, including prominent writers, scholars, and artists, came in person to its editorial office to receive free of charge publications supplied through the person-to-person program (1,248 visitors and 1,900 books during the second half of 1967 alone).147

The literary quarterly Magyar Muhely (Hungarian workshop), launched in 1962 in Paris by a group of young Hungarian exile writers and edited by Pal Nagy, was partially supported by FEC’s WEOP through its Paris office and by Minden’s PSPD after 1966. The magazine sought to be a bridge between the West and Hungary, and, besides the works of Hungarian exiles also published those of poets and writers in Hungary, such as Sandor Weores, who found it hard to have their works published there. The publication of Weores’s anthology in the West caused considerable embarrassment to the regime. The magazine was closely scrutinized in Hungary and mentioned from time to time in Hungarian literary periodicals, usually in appreciative terms. It aroused lively debates among Hungarian writers, some of whom wished to see it circulate in Hungary and be available on the newsstands there. 60% of the 1,200 copies printed in 1965 were mailed to Hungary and Yugoslavia free of charge, and the number of copies was increased to

1,500 by 1968. Of those, PSPD bought 250 for person-to-person distribution and 250 more for mailing to Hungary.

Through one of its Paris editors, Magyar Muhely received many letters from Hungary and occasionally from slovakia and transylvania. the editors were also active in East-West contacts, receiving and sometimes hosting and assisting Hungarians travelling to the West (roughly 200 persons a year), among them many prominent writers and intellectuals coming to Paris. they held monthly meetings attended by Hungarian writers from Hungary and living abroad. In 1967, they organized an east-West meeting of young writers named “Atelier I,” and another, “atelier II,” planned for 1968 did not materialize. the lectures given there were published in book form, and PsPD bought 280 copies for mailing and person-to-person distribution. in 1963, the magazine was visited by a member of the Hungarian Government’s institute for Cultural Relations with the West, who proposed an exchange of manuscripts, and by J6zsef Darvas, Chairman of the Hungarian Writers’ Union and former Minister of Culture. Darvas said he would propose the approval of the exchange and the freedom of circulation of Magyar Muhely in Hungary. A year later, one of the magazine’s editors returned to Hungary, and in 1968 two editors of the quarterly attended a conference of translators of Hungarian in Budapest. By mid-1969, Minden noted in his report that in its search for a dialogue, the magazine “scrupulously avoids political commentary and criticism of the present Hungarian regime.” In May 1969, Magyar Muhely was officially authorized to receive subscriptions from Hungary through the government agency Kultura, which led Minden to cut by half his per copy subsidy price. His last purchase of 250 copies was in April 1969.148

Another Hungarian emigre periodical that deserves a mention is the bi-monthly Irodalmi Ujsdg (Literary journal), launched in 1950 as a literary weekly of the Hungarian Writers’ Union. It was the main organ of the so-called “writers’ revolt” between 1953 and 1956, and its only issue published during the Hungarian Revolution on November 2, 1956, was translated into more than 20 languages. After the crushing of the revolution, a score of writers founded the Hungarian Writers’ Federation in Exile (HWFE) and re-launched the periodical in London with the support of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The sharply anti-communist bi-weekly was very popular among Hungarian refugees to the West but ran into internal dissension. With the defection of two of its members to Hungary, the HWFE fell apart and ceased to exist, but the paper was saved by FEC’s WEoD. At the end of 1961, the periodical moved to Paris, with the writer and journalist Endre Enczi (1902-1974) as editor-in-chief, helped by Tibor Meray (1924-), a former communist writer and journalist, who became editor-in-chief from 1971 to 1989. Another contributor was the prominent writer and historian Ferenc (Francois) Fejto (1909-2008), who had lived in France for 25 years. In line with the relative “liberalization” of the Kadar regime in Hungary, the paper eased its tone and sought contacts with Hungarian writers travelling abroad. In September 1965, while on an official visit to Paris, a member of the HSWP’s Politburo, Zoltan Komocsin, encouraged Enczi to return to Hungary, but was met with a categorical refusal. The same month, Minden reported that PSPD was buying 170 subscriptions of the magazine, increased in 1968 to 200 (60 for mailing and 140 for person-to-person distribution).149

Non-subsidized Hungarian periodicals, purchased on an issue-to-issue basis by PSPD after 1964 for mailing and person-to-person distribution, included the monthly Uj Europa (New Europe), published in Munich and edited by Emil Csonka (80 to 100 copies), the Catholic magazine Katolikus Szemle (Catholic review), published in Rome since 1968 by Gellert Bekes (25 to 30 copies), and Magyar Tdrtenelmi Szemle (Hungarian historical review), with no figures available. FEC support for the emigre periodical Nemzetor (Guardian), published in Munich and edited by Tibor Tollas, was discontinued in 1963.

Czechoslovak emigre periodicals mailed and distributed person-to-person included Svedectvi (Testimony), published in Paris and edited by the writer and publisher Pavel Tigrid (1903-2003), which was widely read by Czechoslovak exiles and dissidents in Czechoslovakia. Other Czechoslovak emigre journals were Ceske slovo (The Czech word), Nase snahy (Our efforts), a bi-monthly journal in Slovak published in Toronto of which PSPD bought 50 copies, Promeny (Changes), with 70 copies bought, Zprdvy SVU (SVU News), a bulletin published in New York by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Science in America (SVU), and the quarterly Novy zurnal (New review). In the second half of 1967 and first half of 1968, PSPD also purchased 800 copies of Fiinpa Romdneascd, a cultural magazine published in Paris at irregular intervals by Romanian exiles who were in touch with the Carol I Foundation located in the French capital. From July 1, 1970 until June 30, 1973, lAC kept distributing the following East European emigre periodicals: Kultura, Na Antenie and Wiadomosci (Polish), Promeny, Svedectvi and Cesko slovo (Czech), Nase snahy (Slovak), and Irodalmi Ujsdg, Uj Ldtohatdr, Magyar Hirado, and Merleg (Hungarian). The list of American and West European periodicals had been cut back from 43 in the second half of 1970 (34 in English, six in French, and three in German), to a much more modest 17 (15 in English, two in French).

While still in existence, FEC’s Exile Policy Division also supported in whole or in part the following publications: Baltic Review and its Spanish edition Revista Baltica, published by the Committee for a Free Lithuania, Romania, by the Rumanian National Committee, Shqiptari i Lire, by the Free Albania Committee, Shejzat, by an Albanian exile group in Rome, Free and Independent Bulgaria, by the Bulgarian National Committee, Hirado (New York), by the Association of Hungarian Students of North America, Hungarian Quarterly, edited by Imre Kovacs, by the Hungarian National Committee, Romania, by the Rumanian National Committee, Romanian Literary Review, by the Carol I Foundation, La Nation Roumaine, by the French Rumanian National Committee, and Jutro Polski, by the Polish Peasant Party in London.150

Books published and/or translated with PSPD support. From the inception of the book program onwards, FEP undertook the translation and printing of various publications, starting in 1957 with Milovan Djilas’ The New Class, printed in 11,000 copies in Munich in Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian translation, followed in 1959 by Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago. In 1957 and 1958, FEP published several books dealing with the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the role of the Hungarian Army during the revolution (in Hungarian), and a selection of Hungarian prose fiction written between 1954 and 1956. In the 1960s, when Minden headed the PSPD, it became common practice to assist with the publication and occasionally the translation of a specific book when it was believed there was a specific need for it. This assistance took the form of a guarantee to the publisher to buy a given number of copies of the book if they went ahead with its publication. In a few cases, PsPD helped to have a work translated or commissioned a book’s publication and purchased the entire printing for both mailing and person-to-person distribution. Most of these books were translations or original writings in Polish and Hungarian, and occasionally in other East European languages. When a publication was very successful, reprints were ordered.

Because of the severe restrictions imposed on literary freedom and the shortage of all sorts of books in Poland, the importance of Polish exile literature increased in the late 1950s. The best Polish books were published in the West and not in Poland, and exile Polish publishing houses were encouraged to look for unpublished manuscripts in their possession, which they were unable to publish themselves for lack of funds. The publication of writings by Polish writers living in Poland was also considered. The earliest Polish books published in 1958 with the support of Sam Walker’s East European Institute (EEI) were Czas Niepokoju (The time of anxiety), an anthology of contemporary British and American poetry edited by Pawel Mayewski, Filozofia Amerykanska (American philosophy) by J. Krzywicki, and a collection of economic studies edited by Adam Rudzki.151 By 1960, the output of the emigre Polish publishers was impressive, and Polish literary

Circles relied very much on the supply of this kind of literature, particularly the Polish edition of Dr. Zhivago. But according to one correspondent, readers in Poland did not always uncritically approve the choice of emigre books. Their best chance of success was either with publications opposed to the communist doctrine imposed on Poland, or with works that could not be published in Poland. The Polish people expected the emigres to speak on their behalf and to publish good historical and literary works in order to “keep the nation within the framework of proper civilization.”152 The main publishers of books in Polish were the Polish Writers Association, the Polish Cultural Foundation, the Polish School of Political and Social Sciences, and Gryf, all in London, and Kultura, Libella, and the Institut Litteraire in Paris. Hungarian books were published by Aurora Verlag, Heller and Molnar in Munich, and Occidental Press in Washington, D. C.

In 1960, in order to give a larger number of people a good background in contemporary Western thought, Minden started a series of publications in Polish and Hungarian, with a bibliography in Polish compiled by the Polish School of Political and Social Science in London. Polish translators living in Poland and France translated Gaetan Picon’s Panorama de idees contemporaines (Panorama of contemporary thought) under the supervision of the Polish publishing house Libella in Paris. 1,000 copies of the first book and 1,300 of the second were mailed to Poland. Minden also initiated a Polish translation of a manual of twentieth-century literature by P. Castex and P. Surer to be printed by Libella, a French collection of economic articles to be translated by Librairie Polonaise in 1,000 copies each, a Hungarian translation in 1,000 copies to be printed by Occidental Press in Washington, D. C., and a book dealing with the latest writings of post-Keynesian British economists, also in 1,000 copies.153

During 1965, PSPD assisted in the publication of two Polish books, Exile Literature, Vol. 2, edited by Tymon Terlecki, and From Sobieski to Kosciusko by M. Kukiel, as well as a French edition of Anthology of Polish Poetry edited by K. A. Jelinski. Also assisted were a Hungarian and Czech translation of USA and its Economic Future, by Arnold B. Barach (a Polish translation was published the following year), a Hungarian translation of Le milieu divin by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a reprint of the Hungarian translation of Picon’s Panorama des idees contemporaines, 1,000 copies of a translation of Mihaljo Mihajlov’s Moscow Summer, 1964 in Hungarian, Czech, Bulgarian, Polish, and Romanian, and Icicle by Abram Tertz in Czech.154

In 1966, 1967, and 1968, a large number of Polish books were published with PSPD assistance: History of the Polish Socialist Party, Vol. 1, by Adam and Lidia Ciolkosz, Anthology of American and British Poetry edited by Paul Mayewski (in Polish), Memoirs by Andrew Nagorski, Selected Essays of Aldous Huxley, translated by Ian Kempka, History of the U. S.A. by Pawel Zaremba (second revised edition), Memoirs and Documents of the Polish Underground Army and Politicians and Soldiers by J6zef Garlinski, Wiedomosci in Exile edited by S. Kos-sowska, Anthology on European Socialism edited by A. Ciolkosz, In Dmowski’s School by Tadeusz Bielecki, Underground Army by General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, Hitler’s Finest Ally and Fringe of Freedom by Aleksander Bregman, The Polish Participation in the Napoleonic Wars by Marian Kujawski, Democracy and Changing Social Ideals edited by J. Ostaszewski, and reprints of Little Known Poland by George Flemming (in Polish) and of the Polish translation of Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago. Hungarian books included Essay on the Hungarian Revolution and Huns in the West by Laszl6 Cs. Szab6, Diary 1945-1957 by Sandor Marai, Le phenomene humain by Teilhard de Chardin, Hungarian Social Reader edited by William Juhasz, Freedom under the Snow edited by Tamas Aczel, Workshop I by the editors of Magyar Muhely, Solar Eclipse by

Jozsef Bakucz, and a Hungarian translation of Twenty Letters to a Friend by Svetlana Alliluyeva. PSPD helped publish in Czech 1,000 copies of an 80-page booklet entitled In the Name of the Republic on the rehabilitation of Rudolf Slansky, Our Task, Direction and Goal by Miroslav Tyrs, Czechoslovak Summer 1967 by the editors of Svedectvi, and a translation from Russian into Czech of Great Elegy by Josip Brodsky.155

In 1969, the last full year Minden’s division was part of Free Europe, Inc., PSPD helped publish three books in Hungarian, Hungarian Calvary, Hungarian Resurrection by Oszkar Jaszi, Szabo Dezso by Gyula Gombos, and New Horizons edited by Gyorgy Gomori, as well as an anthology of Hungarian poets living abroad since 1956, and one book in Polish, The Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Poland by Stefan Witold Wojstomski. The following books were in preparation: two Polish books, History of the Polish Socialist Party, Vol. 2, by Adam and Lidia Ciolkosz, and The Polish Community in the British Isles, Vol. 2, by Bohdan Jezewski, Contemporary Polish Muse by Gyorgy Gomori in Hungarian and Polish, and one Hungarian book, Around Ideologies, edited by Tibor Hanak.156

One particular book deserves special mention, namely Panorama des idees contemporaines edited by Gaetan Picon, with selections from well-known contemporary writers, philosophers, scientists, and political thinkers, and giving a broad view of Western thought. It was printed and reprinted several times in Polish and in Hungarian translation (the latter reached six editions) for both mailing and person-to-person distribution. Extremely popular and highly praised for its contents, it remained for 30 years one of the most sought-after books in Hungary, eliciting overwhelmingly positive, even enthusiastic responses and many eager spontaneous requests from recipients in both countries. Picon’s second edition in 1963 resulted in a flood of requests from Hungary. In one instance, 44 Catholic seminarists asked the book to be sent to their private addresses. A Hungarian chemist

Wrote: “Picon’s book is a marvelous work. Indeed, it has given me even a few almost sleepless nights, namely I could not put it down.”157 A Hungarian literary historian who received the 1963 edition as a young man recently recalled that Picon’s book was like a “wonder, an opening and a ray of light” through the Iron Curtain. It started to circulate and was discussed for weeks in Budapest’s Belvarosi Kavehaz (Inner City Coffeehouse) and enriched such authors as Sandor Csodri and Gyula Kodolanyi. The poet and writer J6zsef Tornai called it “heavenly manna for our bodies starved for thought.”158

Throughout the Cold War, book publishing activities were particularly important for the CIA, so it was not adverse to getting books published or distributed abroad, without revealing U. S. involvement, by covertly subsidizing politically significant foreign publications and national and international organizations for book publishing or distributing purposes. According to a former CIA officer, books were the most important weapons of strategic long-range propaganda. “Get books published or distributed abroad without revealing any U. S. influence,” he suggested, “by covertly subsidizing foreign publications or booksellers. Get books published which should not be ‘contaminated’ by any covert tie-in with the U. S. government, especially if the position of the author is ‘delicate.’ Get books published for operational reasons regardless of commercial viability. Initiate and subsidize indigenous national or international organizations for book publishing or distributing purposes. Stimulate the writing of politically significant books by unknown foreign authors—either directly [...] or indirectly through literary agents or publishers.

For over three decades, George Minden was a master in this type of activity by selecting the right books and periodicals for the right occupational groups and the proper institutions in five communist East European countries, and later in the soviet Union, where political and ideological censorship prevailed. In this manner, he provided the most convincing testimony to the lasting power of the book.

Of the CIA’s Covert Action staff to the Church Committee, in “Foreign and Military Intelligence, Book 1, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate Together With Additional Supplemental and Separate Views,” April 26, 1976, 192-4 (Washington D. C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1976).